In spite of an analysis by AFBF that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement would boost net farm income in the United States by $4.4 billion annually, the pact has come under fire from presidential candidates. President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is leaving no doubt about why he believes the agreement to boost trade in the Asia-Pacific region is important to the nation.
 
In a Washington Post op-ed published Monday, Obama wrote that TPP would give the United States a “leg up on our economic competitors, including the one we hear a lot about on the campaign trail these days: China.”
 
“If we don’t get the TPP done, American goods will continue to face high tariffs and other trade barriers in the region,” Obama wrote. “American businesses will lose competitive access to Asian markets, which would mean fewer of the cars our autoworkers manufacture would make it to growing markets, more of our farmers’ and ranchers’ products would run into barriers abroad, and small-business owners hoping to sell their goods abroad would still find themselves ensnared in red tape.”
 
He stated that TPP approval would make sure that the United States, rather than China, writes “the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century.”