President Obama wrote Tuesday that the recently struck Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be good for American businesses and workers. In an Op-Ed e noted that new rules “protecting worker safety and prohibiting child labor” in other countries will “make sure that businesses abroad play by the same kinds of rules we have here at home.”
In the op-ed, the President laid out his case for the hotly debated pact, which he called “a trade deal that helps working families get ahead.” Obama noted that he believes the TPP will protect American jobs and create more jobs, especially in manufacturing, by eliminating costly tariffs companies currently have to pay:
These are good jobs—and this agreement will lead to even more of them. It would eliminate more than 18,000 taxes that various countries put on made-in-America products. For instance, last year, we exported $89 billion in automotive products alone to TPP countries, many of which have soaring tariffs—more than 70 percent in some cases—on made-in-America products. Our farmers and ranchers, whose exports account for roughly 20 percent of all farm income, face similarly high tariffs. Thanks to the TPP, those taxes will drop drastically, most of them to zero. That means more U.S. Exports supporting more higher-paying American jobs.
The President made a point of not asking people to take his word for it, instead posting the entire deal online.
The TPP has taken sharp criticism from both the right and the left. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called it “disastrous,” while Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz deemed it “another manifestation of the Washington cartel.”