WASHINGTON: Chinese president Xi Jinping will be in Washington on an official state visit. President Obama had hoped to impress Xi with an all but sealed trade deal with major Pacific nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to demonstrate that America is still a force to be reckoned with in China’s backyard.
But Obama’s trade policy is in tatters. The grand design, created by Obama’s old friend and former Wall Street deal-maker, trade chief Mike Froman, comes in two parts a grand bargain with Pacific nations aimed at building a U.S.-led trading bloc to contain the influence of China, and an Atlantic agreement to cement economic relations with the European Union.
Both are on the verge of collapse from their own contradictory goals and incoherent logic.This past June, the President, using every ounce of political capital, managed to get Congress to vote him negotiating authority (by the barest of margins) for these deals. Under the so-called fast-track procedure, there is a quick up-or-down vote on a trade agreement that can’t be amended.
