Foreign Policy highlights an Atlantic Council event featuring Secretary of State John Kerry on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership:
The campaign to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP, has involved scores of meetings with lawmakers and high-profile TV interviews emphasizing the opportunity for middle-class job growth and stricter international environmental regulations — bread-and-butter issues for liberals. But this week, the administration tapped Secretary of State John Kerry to make a different argument: expanded trade in East Asia will be a boost for U.S. national security.
“The TPP is one way to guarantee that our bilateral ties already strong grow even stronger, while serving to reassure all of our allies that America’s commitment to the region is both deeply rooted and long-term,” Kerry told attendees at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington.
Kerry heralded the emerging trade deal as a critical component of Obama’s “Asia rebalance” strategy that involves strengthening economic and military ties with Pacific allies in the face of China’s growing economic and military clout.