Asian trade

Why Asian trade is a national-security issue

Two former ambassadors weigh in.

By David Carden and David Adelman

President Obama has spent the past few days in the Philippines and Malaysia, working to strengthen alliances in Asia and help build the multilateral organizations that are writing the rules in that dynamic part of the world.

At a time when the American public is focused on national security and the Middle East, it might be surprising for the President to be thinking so much about trade across the Pacific. But the reality is that trade is one of our most crucial ways to guarantee security--and the Pacific Rim trade deal Congress is now considering will be a linchpin of the effort.

The economic centerpiece to America’s Asia policy is the Trans Pacific Partnership, a comprehensive trade and investment pact among 12 countries representing 40 percent of the global GDP and 30 percent of global trade. All 12 participants are members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization, which convened its annual summit in Manila last week. The hope is eventually the TPP will develop into a Free Trade Area of the Pacific including all 21 APEC countries, ultimately expanding even further to include non-APEC countries such as India and Columbia.

Congressional approval of the TPP is required and debate on the agreement is well underway, with a vote likely to come next year. The economic case for the TPP is powerful, and that’s been the focus of most of the conversation so far. Supporters are right to stress benefits like economic growth and American jobs. But, there is another less-discussed aspect of the TPP which reinforces the compelling economic arguments in support of the pact, and that is its impact on security.

The provisions in the TPP – and the deeper engagement with our friends it will bring -- are crucial to protecting the United States from a wide variety of non-traditional security risks. As diplomats, we saw firsthand the dangers of these often borderless challenges as we worked to ensure the safety of Americans at home and abroad.

Some of these risks aren’t expressly covered by TPP, but the pact would enhance the capacity of our trading partners to help manage them. Such risks include the possible re-emergence of pandemic diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory System, or SARS, which was first discovered in Asia and killed thousands as it spread to three dozen countries. The World Bank estimates SARS cost the global economy of $54 billion, and that the costs of a future pandemic might be as high as $3 trillion. Other non-traditional challenges relate to different aspects of human health, such as food security and nutrition, which have a great impact on the productivity of some of the countries that have signed the agreement. By streamlining customs and other procedures to expedite the flow of goods across border, increasing productivity and raising the standard of living, it will also greatly enhance our trading partners’ ability to respond to natural disasters.

The trade deal also addresses some non-traditional risks more explicitly. For example, illegal fishing would decline, which would help meet the nutritional needs of the developing world and thus lessen disruptive human migration. The deal also aims to reduce deforestation and illegal animal trafficking, which contribute respectively to the effort to curb climate change and the incidence of zoonotic diseases. Other more explicit benefits include improving transparency and non-discrimination provisions with regard to state-linked companies and government procurement. When people describe the TPP as the highest quality trade deal ever negotiated, it’s in part because of these benefits, which haven’t been found in previous free trade agreements.

Greater global interdependence has lifted many boats, but it has also dramatically increased the non-traditional security challenges we face. The trade pact would help manage them by raising the capital of our trade partners and by binding us together in the common cause of promoting the emergence of a rules-based, sustainable global economy. Such an alliance will be necessary if we are to lessen the impact of the risks we all are facing.

The TPP is more than the sum of its terms. For our friends across the Pacific, it is a capacity-builder promoting a more peaceful and prosperous world. The United States increasingly will need to ally with its political and economic partners to help address the full range of security issues. The failure of our friends to do so will contribute to our own.

Today's risks are tomorrow's security crises. The violence this week is a stark reminder that the world is a very dangerous place and the United States needs strong partners to keep Americans safe. A century ago, President Woodrow Wilson remarked that "we are citizens of the world....The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this." The world has become even more intertwined since his observation. The far ranging benefits of the TPP brings into clear focus the realization that we must do our part to fulfill America’s obligation as a leading citizen of the world.