Publication

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are a good test case for examining what happens when sweeping, grand rhetoric meets political and economic realities. In these ongoing negotiations, officials began the talks in late 2009 and early 2010 with repeated pronouncements about the need to open markets “with no exceptions” to the other members. These statements applied particularly to trade in goods. This paper examines the extent to which negotiators were able to meet these aspirational goals after 11 rounds of meetings in two years.