The Trans‐​Pacific Partnership trade agreement between the United States and 11 other countries was reached late last year, signed by the parties earlier this year, and now awaits ratification by the various governments. In terms of the value of trade and share of global output accounted for by the 12 member countries, the TPP is the largest U.S. trade agreement to date.


In the United States, the TPP has been controversial from the outset, drawing criticism from the usual suspects – labor unions, environmental groups, and sundry groups of anti‐​globalization crusaders – but also from free traders concerned that the deal may be laden with corporate welfare and other illiberal provisions that might lead to the circumvention or subversion of domestic sovereignty and democratic accountability.


As free traders who recognize that these kinds of agreements tend to deliver managed trade liberalization (which usually includes some baked‐​in protectionism), rather than free trade, my colleagues and I at the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies set out to perform a comprehensive assessment of the TPP’s 30 chapters with the goal of answering this question: Should Free Traders Support the Trans‐​Pacific Partnership?


Yesterday, Cato released our findings in this paper, which presents a chapter‐​by‐​chapter analysis of the TPP, including summaries, assessments, scores on a scale of 0 (protectionist) to 10 (free trade), and scoring rationales. Of the 22 chapters analyzed, we found 15 to be liberalizing (scores above 5), 5 to be protectionist (scores below 5), and 2 to be neutral (scores of 5). Considered as a whole, the terms of the TPP are net liberalizing – it would, on par, increase our economic freedoms.


Accordingly, my trade colleagues and I hope it will be ratified and implemented as soon as possible.