• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, October 6, 2015

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement faces a grueling battle for approval in Congress — and the legislatures of each participating country — now that the 12 nations involved have hammered out a deal after five years of negotiations led by the United States.

The TPP “would phase out thousands of import tariffs as well as other barriers to international trade, like Japanese regulations that keep out some American-made autos and trucks,” Jackie Calmes reports for the New York Times. “It also would establish uniform rules on corporations’ intellectual property, and open the Internet even in communist Vietnam.”

But just as Congress and presidential candidates are divided on TPP in a bipartisan manner — neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump like it, for instance — marketers are also split. Ford opposes the plan for its lack of strong “currency manipulation” regulations, for example. 

Meanwhile, “Boeing, the largest U.S. exporter by value, said the deal would help it compete overseas, where it gets 70% of its commercial airplane revenue, while computer-chip giant Intel Corp. said it could bolster U.S. tech companies through ‘critical’ intellectual property protections and encryption standards,” write David Kesmodel, William Mauldin and Jonathan D. Rockoff for the Wall Street Journal. 

They also report strong support from Big Ag, including Cargill, which claims the pact “take[s] the world a step closer to becoming more prosperous and more food-secure.” The New Zealand Kiwi Growers also like the deal, apparently benefiting by the elimination of a tariff agreement with Korea.

Ideally, the new TPP rules for global trade “will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class,” as the homepage of the Office of the United States Trade Representative promises.

But opponents — including most Democrats who have split with President Barack Obama over the TPP — see the top line quite differently.

“The TPP would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ‘trade’ pact model that has spurred massive U.S. trade deficits and job loss, downward pressure on wages, unprecedented levels of inequality and new floods of agricultural imports,” according to the homepage for Public Citizen. 

And the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls it “a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.” 

The 12 nations currently involved in the TPP are the U.S., Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico and Brunei Darussalam. 

China is notably absent from that group — indeed, one of the main intentions of the TPP is to keep its growing influence in the Pacific region in check. China's Ministry of Commerce hailed Monday’s accord, however, saying it “hopes the TPP pact and other free trade arrangements in the region can boost each other and contribute to the Asia-Pacific's trade, investment and economic growth,” the BBC reports.

“When more than 95% of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy,” Obama said in a statement hailing the agreement reached in Atlanta. “We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment.”

But “it’s too early to pop the champagne,” as the hed over a story on CNBC.com puts it. Besides the political wrangling taking place here and abroad, “tariffs are due to be lowered and market access increased only gradually,” Ansuya Harjani points out. “Even after it is implemented, the full benefits will not be felt for many more years,” Andrew Kenningham, senior global economist at Capital Economics, tells her.

“What would imperil the Trans-Pacific Partnership the most is populists in both parties joining arms in an effort to defeat it in Congress,” writes Eric Bradner for CNN in a piece that surveys the positions of leading domestic politicians and candidates. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has yet to announce her position but “already, most Democrats are resistant to the deal,” led by liberal senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

“Some conservatives have also opposed what they've dubbed ‘Obamatrade,’ warning that they don't trust anything that the President negotiates,” Bradner writes.

On the whole, “consumers should gain” from the agreement over time, concludes Paul Davidson in USA Today. C. Fred Bergsten, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, tells him that “reduced tariffs on imports should cut prices by 5% to 10% for some electronics, clothing and auto-parts. And an agreement to reduce the 12 years of U.S. patent protection for so-called biologic drugs will make cheaper generics available to consumers sooner.” 

Some jobs will be lost in the U.S.; others gained. Overall, Bergsten also foresees a net gain in employment.

We foresee a net gain in rhetorical blather on both sides of the aisle.