The news article briefly tells how before the United States can consider expanding a Trans-Pacific free trade agreement--which would include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Chile and Peru--China has to agree to "move forward" on a bilateral investment treaty. The article focuses more on the free trade theme than the bilateral investment treaty, yet the prospect of a free trade agreement that would cover "40% of the global economy", which is not even including China, would make for an interesting future. If the US and the EU proceed with their free trade agreement, there would be an increase of a couple hundred billion dollars of trade. If the same hypothetically happened with the countries who would be affected by a Trans-Pacific free trade agreement, it begs the question how much the world will benefit.
On the downside, local economies will undoubtedly find themselves at a disadvantage. Barriers would no longer protect their goods, not to mention the huge black market in China. I wonder how the thousands to hundreds of thousands of workers in protected industries will react when they no longer have those protections in place?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/23/us-usa-china-trade-idUSBREA0M1LV20140123
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