Amy Stouddart writes:  United States Trade Representative Froman has been saber-rattling at the World Trade Organization (WTO). “Under the President’s leadership”, said Ambassador Froman, “USTR will continue working tirelessly to ensure that China and all WTO Members play by the rules so we can grow solid, middle-class jobs here in America.” And “We’re ensuring that it’s the United States that leads and defines the rules of the road.”  The argument that humanity writ-large should play by U.S. rules in order to create solid, middle-class jobs in America amounts to a strategic misstep. It undermines the broader case the United States has been trying to make about why it – not China – should be at the center of the global trading order.

Trade deals are contentious and thus always subject to a certain amount of political theater: while there might be net job creation or higher wages, some jobs are lost; industries are shifted; compromises on standards are made.

At a time when the United States is leading an effort to rewrite global trading architecture, however, describing trade agreements and the WTO as tools for enforcing U.S. rules which serve U.S. interests rather than as mutually-agreed upon frameworks which broadly serve the global good is counterproductive to the Obama administration’s trade agenda.

A large part of the TPP selling job in Asia, in the developing world, and to critics who suggested that the agreements essentially amounted to an abandonment of the fairer, multilateral (if painfully slow) process at the WTO has been that the United States is a benign leader in the global trading order, unlike some of the emerging economies – especially China – who seek to exploit the global economy to their own benefit. TPP is not being pursued just to advance U.S. interests, runs the argument, but because a freer global trading order with high standards and rules that can be fairly enforced is better for the global economy.

Ambassador Froman has shifted his focus to the internationalist case:: “We can lead and ensure that the global trading system reflects our values and our interests, or we can cede that role to others, which will inevitably create a less advantageous position for our workers and our businesses.”

The original impetus behind TPP for the United States was more about ensuring the continued development of an open, cooperative global economy than about shipping U.S. beef to Japan.  Winning the TPP will depend in part on persuading the world that the United States is willing and able to act in the global interest, not just its own.