To have a good understanding of why the USG wants the TPP, yes, it's about China.
As citizens we feel that inequality of wealth opportunity is the high, urgent priority - and that tools inside the TPP will exacerbate these issues.
As the government the existential threat to the US hegemonic uni-power world order - and by extension the political power and much of the economic opportunity and strategic interests of the US - is the high, urgent threat.
TPP is a bad deal because it only seeks to solve one of these and may actively harm the other - but I remember Obama saying something to the effect of "find me a better deal."
A better deal in a "free trade agreement" is just that - a free trade agreement. Enforcement and length of IP rights, the ability of corporations to extrajudicially sue governments, GMOs (as is the case in the Trans-Atlantic trade agreement) etc. has nothing to do with free trade, i.e. trade without import taxes.
The TPP is not merely a free trade deal. It is a trade deal made exclusively to isolate China, and then allow it to participate in a few years only if it (China) follows certain rules (i.e. Western Intellectual Property law).
As citizens we feel that inequality of wealth opportunity is the high, urgent priority - and that tools inside the TPP will exacerbate these issues.
As the government the existential threat to the US hegemonic uni-power world order - and by extension the political power and much of the economic opportunity and strategic interests of the US - is the high, urgent threat.
TPP is a bad deal because it only seeks to solve one of these and may actively harm the other - but I remember Obama saying something to the effect of "find me a better deal."