China produces more cars that all of the EU combined. The "isolationist" (according to free traders) President Obama imposed a 25% to 35% tariff on Chinese cars and tires. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tariffs-trade-analysis-20160724-snap-story.html We reduced tariffs on Japanese cars when they built factories in the USA. The same happening for tires. So... do you free traders want to open the flood gate to Chinese, other Asian and Indian made cars and tires? No tariffs on computers essentially eliminated American made PCs and laptops.
I strongly disagreed with the TPP because of its impact on sovereignty of nations. It would have forced us to make agreements that end up making the laws of participating nations secondary to the agreement. This leaves participating nations subject to lawsuits for pursuing our own best interests. There were also huge changes to copyright rules, internet freedom etc. The second problem was that it put all labour into one big market where Canadians and Americans who have a relatively high standard of living would be competing with labour in nations such as Indonesia that have much lower standard of living. Overall I am in favour of free trade agreements between nations with a similar standard of living but between nations that have low standards it's a mistake. The one thing I did like about TPP was that it was a free trade agreement that created a bloc of nations that would compete with China and it was designed to limit China's scope of influence in the pacific rim. That is an excellent goal.
