I think a little push on Japan getting into the TPP would not have been out of order today

[RB TexLa]

Japan May Move on Joining U.S.-led Trade Talks Under Abe

Japan’s new government may move to join U.S.-led trade talks as the Abe administration seeks to help exporters and strengthen ties with the nation’s main ally amid rising tensions with China.

“Japan will deepen discussions on the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership,” Agriculture Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference today in Tokyo. His ministry oversees an industry that has led opposition to the TPP out of concern it would hurt domestic farmers. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters late yesterday that Japan would “comprehensively consider” joining the talks.

The pact would help companies from Toyota Motor Corp. to Kobe Steel Ltd. (5406) compete with rivals from South Korea, which already has a free-trade deal with the U.S. Obstacles include the powerful farming lobby, a key support base for Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, as he looks to solidify its hold on power in upper house elections in July.

“Abe is likely to make clear that joining the TPP is part of his long-term strategy,” when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama next year, said Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities Japan Co. and a former central bank official. “Still, agriculture has very strong lobbying powers, so entry into negotiations won’t happen until after the upper house elections.”



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-27/japan-may-move-on-joining-us-led-trade-talks-under-shinzo-abe.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Yeah if one had neocon/neolib bullshit at the top of one's agenda.

[RB TexLa]

5. Well, start you an internet petition, and see if you can stop it.

[Bucky]

2. Abe who?

Oh!

[RB TexLa]

4. You honestly don't know who PM Shinzo Abe is?

Wow

Really, that is amazing.

[HiPointDem]

3. I think a little push on the US getting out would have been in order.

[RB TexLa]

6. Yes, pulling away from the world is such progressive thinking.

[HiPointDem]

14. "the world" isn't demanding "free trade" agreements. financiers are. pulling away from *them*

is the sanest thing "the world" could do. and incarcerating them, of course, as the foul criminals they are.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. The TPP are a group of corporations creating international law affecting all of us.

Why would anyone support it?

"Fascism is better called corporatism, because it is the merger of corporation and state." ~Benito Mussolini

[RB TexLa]

8. There is also input from labor unions, environmental rights, and human rights groups

Try again.

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Sure. Input. Very nice but how utterly meaningless. Anonymous are strongly against the TPP

and I stand with them. Go ahead and trust unregulated corporations and see what it gets you...if you haven't already been paying attention (check my Journal).

Here's a small example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022232303

[WinkyDink]

10. Oh, I'll just bet.

[WinkyDink]

11. TODAY? I think Obama was busy. Even FOX showed that.

[RB TexLa]

12. I was speaking of during the speech.

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. The best place for TPP is up George W. Bush's ASSHOLE!!!! (NM)

[pampango]

15. From Pew: ...what will be the pillars of the Obama administration’s economic policy toward China?

Romney lost, and it was Romney supporters who were most supportive of the next president confronting China. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans backed getting tougher with Beijing, up 11 percentage points in just a year. Democrats, on the other hand, prioritized building stronger economic relations with China (53%) over getting tougher with China (39%). Democrats’ backing for confrontation was up 6 points since 2011, but it remained the minority sentiment among those in Obama’s party.

Likely components of the administration's economic policy towards China

The first will likely be more complaints about Chinese subsidies and trade practices filed with the WTO, given the president’s campaign promises and his record during his first term. Washington has been relatively successful with such cases in the past, and pursuing multilateral dispute settlements has the added advantage of avoiding a direct bilateral confrontation with China.

The second will be the pursuit of trade agreements that notably do not include China. The most important of these is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade agreement among a growing list of nations bordering the Pacific. It is the Obama administration’s avowed aim to construct a TPP with standards so high — especially rules regarding behavior by state-owned enterprises — that China could never join without transforming its economic system. This stance in part reflects the fact that two-thirds (67%) of the U.S. public believe China practices unfair trade, according to a 2012 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The likely 2013 launch of a U.S.-European Union free trade negotiation — effectively a Trans-Atlantic Partnership, a bookend for the TPP — primarily reflects majority (58%) sentiment in the United States that increased trade with Europe would be a good thing for the United States. But it can also be seen as an attempt to establish U.S.-European, rather than Chinese, technical and regulatory standards as global business norms.

The Obama administration is unlikely to label China a currency manipulator, which is something Mitt Romney promised he would do on his first day in office. In Obama’s first term, the White House had multiple opportunities to do so and declined, even though the renminbi was weaker against the dollar than it is now.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/10/u-s-china-economic-relations-in-the-wake-of-the-u-s-election/

This is the first article I have come across that discussed the significance of the current TPP and US-EU trade negotiations in the context of our trade issues with China. Neither include China and both seem to be designed to marginalize - to the extent possible - China's emergence as an economic power by forcing it to change the way it does business in order to compete in the world economy.