Can Donald Trump Sink the TPP?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A last-minute deal has finally been reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and concerns abound. Paul Ryan is concerned about dairy products. Sander Levin is concerned about cars. In Louisiana they’re concerned about sugar. The whole deal is oozing with parochial local concerns.

So will it pass? A couple of months ago, I would have said yes, and I guess I still do. But I’m a little less sure thanks to the Donald Trump effect. He’s opposed to the deal—there’s no telling why, really—and he’s shown a genius in the past for picking out specific details about various issues and then flogging them to death. So I wonder: what’s he going to pick out about the TPP? It might be something ordinary, like currency manipulation provisions, or a general attack on President Obama’s lousy negotiating skills. Equally likely, though, he’ll somehow find something in the treaty that no one else is really paying attention to, and then twist it into a populist attack that really resonates with the public. If he does that successfully, it’s just possible that he could derail the deal.

I’m not sure what odds I’d put on that. But not zero. So far, Trump has mostly been a loudmouth who hasn’t fundamentally changed the political landscape. But there’s a chance he could do it here. He’s worth watching.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate