Obama Wins Authority to Fast-Track TPP Agreement hawn Donnan - FT.com
go to original June 24, 2015

With Mr Obama securing that authority on Wednesday, the focus for negotiators is to resolve a handful of outstanding issues. (Associated Press)

The US Congress on Wednesday put the final stamp on legislation giving President Barack Obama the “fast-track” authority to complete the most ambitious regional trade deal in recent history.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would include two of the world’s three biggest economies — the US and Japan — and with ten other countries involved would cover some 40 per cent of the global economy. That would make it the biggest trade deal completed since the Uruguay Round in the 1990s which created the World Trade Organisation.

The TPP is intended to be the first of a new series of “mega-regional” trade agreements to update the rules of commerce for the 21st century. Its signatories would agree to abide by a vast new set of guidelines on everything from the free flow of data across borders to how state-owned enterprises compete with private sector companies.

The deal aims to strengthen the economic bonds between the US and its Pacific allies while attempting to forge a new global economic rule book before China does. So what comes next?

Read the rest at FT.com

Related: Obama's Strange New Love of Free Trade (HuffPost)

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