The TPP agreement has never been about helping average Americans obtain jobs. Its overarching purpose has been to ensure US corporations gain enough power to dominate international trade markets. More specifically, it was designed to deter China’s expansionist ambitions.
As CNN noted in April:
Really, this is about China.Remember Obama's infamous Asia pivot -- the one Hillary Clinton was spearheading as secretary of state? This deal is its economic underpinning.
China isn't involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But it is working on its own trade deal in the region, with many of the same countries. And that deal won't include the labor and environmental language, or the crackdown on government-owned and operated businesses, or the Internet freedom language, that the United States is insisting on.
Proponents say the deal is the United States' chance to install itself as an economic force in the region, and to require some of the participating countries to play by its rules. The alternative is that those countries could fall increasingly into China's orbit.