Paul Krugman admits the TPP might bring net economic benefits, but he argues that they are smaller than the analyses suggest, in part because the deal’s intellectual-property provisions will reduce potential growth abroad. But, Brad DeLong asks, where are the numbers showing that the net effects of those provisions would be so negative that they make the deal unattractive? Cowan, meanwhile, notes that there are costs and benefits for developing countries that adopt first-world intellectual-property protections.
Vox.com’s Dylan Matthews has the most appealing criticism of the TPP thus far. The problem, he argues, isn’t that the trade deal would force Americans to compete with poorer and more desperate workers overseas. The problem is that the deal wouldn’t do enough of that. Trade helps poor nations develop without exacting net economic damage to rich nations, but the poorest countries are left out of the TPP. Trade deals should instead be as wide as possible, negotiated under the World Trade Organization and not limited to a handful of TPP countries. This is a fair point, but stopping the TPP, particularly now, would make domestic and international circumstances less favorable to negotiating broader agreements in the future.
For its part, the White House argues that many of the critics’ concerns are overblown, and it points out that it has geostrategic considerations as well as economic ones on its side: Ditching the TPP would enable China to build the multilateral trade and political blocs it would like to see in Asia.
Still, Krugman asks, why push the TPP when doing so risks “alienating labor” and “disillusioning progressive activists?” This is a dangerous line of thinking, suggesting that mere partisan solidarity is a legitimate reason to oppose the trade deal. It might also explain why he and other savvy thinkers are spending a lot of energy concocting justifications for opposing the TPP that don’t also make them seem reflexively, untenably anti-trade.
Constricting the political space for progressives to favor trade deals, which is a potential result of the current debate, would be resoundingly bad for the country and the world, making it much more difficult to further liberalize economic exchange and encourage positive-sum international cooperation. If the term “progressive” is to bear any rational relation to its dictionary definition, this cannot happen.
UPDATE, 10:45 a.m.: Text above slightly edited for clarity.


