This is from the White House blog, explaining that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be “the most progressive trade agreement in history”:

They further explain:

If we don’t secure this trade agreement, Americans will be forced to accept the status quo – which is bad for small businesses, bad for American workers, and bad for our future leadership. 

Here’s why: 

…

We would fail to secure strong labor and environmental standards for trade in the world’s fastest-growing region: 

• There’d be no enforceable rules ensuring countries set a minimum wage, end child labor, or enforce workplace safety.

So should those of us who are skeptical about the benefits of a minimum wage law panic here?  Will the TPP spread and promote minimum wage laws around the world?

My sense is that the answer is no (although no one has seen the full text of the TPP yet, so I suppose there could be some surprises). Instead, I think the TPP will say that countries have to enforce their own labor laws.  Thus, if you have a minimum wage law on your books, you have to enforce it (with credit to my colleague Bill Watson for this explanation).  That’s a lot less scary (but still a little scary).

At the same time, the whole idea of marketing trade agreements as “progressive” and making reference to minimum wage laws seems like an attempt to garner support from liberals (unlikely) that will quite possibly scare off free market conservatives.  I’m not sure exactly what the White House has in mind; this may very well backfire on them.