Barack Obama

perspective in this, although I don't claim to be an expert.

The first thing to realize is that trade exists and has always existed. Ancient civilizations realized that each nation had things others might want, and that it was often easier to buy and sell than invade and take. Vikings are known as warriors, but their real business was trade with the fighting just to bring you to around. They traveled to as far as middle Asia looking for things to buy and sell. Yes, they took a lot of stuff, too, but the point wasn't going to war for the fun of it, it was to get stuff. Marco Polo went to China and Columbus sailed to find a water route to China.

The British Empire existed not simply because kings and queens had some urge to rule the world, but because the huge trading companies wanted secure sources and markets.

Today we have marvelously efficient means to get things from here to there and there is no way we will go back to simple local supply. We can get fresh vegetables in the northeast in January and have a choice of automobiles from four continents. We like it that way, and won't go back.

So, as long as trade exists it must be regulated somehow. There is no worldwide authority to write and enforce rules, so the only workable way we've found is to agree to treaties, and hope once one is written everyone will abide by it.

And there's the nut of the thing-- in order to reduce the chances of some country going rogue and walking out, the treaty terms often have to be less agreeable or strict than some might like. But, an agreement is absolutely necessary to avoid anarchy and reduce the chances of Viking trade (i.e war).

The first thing to know about the leaked things about the TPP is that leaks are often engineered as signals to the home team or just to see how things might play out. So, getting all worked up about leaked horrors might actually work in keeping the worst of them out of the final draft. Other than that, they mean little.

The main thing about the TPP is that is specifically to counter the new Chinese place in the world. China has managed to become the fourth, and largest, player in addition to the US, Japan and Europe and threatens to become larger than all of them combined. The TPP is to balance that Chinese economic dominance.

Will it be perfect? Of course not and some on all sides will be hurt while most should see their lot be at least a little better. That's pretty much as good as it gets with most of the things we do. Will rich companies get richer? Sure, but they're going to get richer anyway and with controls in place the rest of us should get hurt less and may even share a little in the profits.