What would a worker-friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership look like?

It won't be easy to achieve

Japanese and American leaders meet to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
(Image credit: (AP Photo/Kimimasa Mayama, Pool))

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — the big free trade deal the Obama administration is trying to hash out with 11 countries around the Pacific Rim — has skeptics on both sides of the aisle. Perhaps that's why economists and writers like Larry Summers, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, and Ezra Klein have all taken shots at figuring out the TPP's merits.

The biggest potential problem with TPP is that past international trade deals have eroded middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, while increasing incomes at the top, thus creating even more of an hourglass economy. Such concerns are balanced against the possibility of a genuine gain to the American economy, and the chance to get other countries to enact tougher labor and environmental standards.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.