The Trans-Pacific Partnership in the 2016 U.S. Election Campaign: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Domestic and Foreign Policy in the Context of Trump's Rise to Power
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.48.101Keywords:
Free trade, United States, Elections, TrumpAbstract
The objective of this article is to analyze the treatment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the axis of the electoral campaign in the United States during 2016. To do so, first we include an introduction on the characteristics of the process of formulation of this mega free trade agreement and its objectives. Then, the 2016 election is analyzed: we include a section on how the discussion on the TPP was introduced in the Democratic Party and another one focused on the Republican Party. In this context, it explores how the electoral dynamics modified the positions of certain legislators, making it impossible for the Obama Administration to have the necessary support to ratify the TPP in Congress. Finally, a section is devoted to the analysis of Trump's victory and the veto of the TPP. The paper seeks to analyze, based on this case, the link between domestic and foreign policy and the relationship between state and civil society in the debates on trade liberalization policies in the United States, observing the changes in power relations. For this purpose, a qualitative case analysis was developed based on a documentary corpus that included official sources, statements by different stakeholders and press articles.
References
Bhambra, G. K. (2017). Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’: On the misrecognition of race and class. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), S214–S232. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12317
Biegon, R. (2020). US Hegemony and the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Consensus, Crisis, and Common Sense. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 13(1), 69–101. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poaa001
Bobo, L. D. (2017). Racism in Trump’s America: Reflections on culture, sociology, and the 2016 US presidential election. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), S85–S104. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12324
Capling, A., y Ravenhill, J. (2011). Multilateralising regionalism: What role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement? The Pacific Review, 24(5), 553–575. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2011.634078
Carnes, N., y Lupu, N. (2021). The White Working Class and the 2016 Election. Perspectives on Politics, 19(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001267
Chodor, T. (2019). The rise and fall and rise of the trans-pacific partnership: 21st century trade politics through a new constitutionalist lens. Review of International Political Economy, 26(2), 232–255. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2018.1543720
Cooper, M. (2022). EE.UU. El capitalismo familiar y la insurrección de la pequeña empresa. Viento sur: Por una izquierda alternativa, 180, 14–24.
Davis, M. (2017a). Election 2016. New Left Review, 103, 5–8.
Davis, M. (2017b). The great god Trump and the white working class. Catalyst, 1(1), 151.
Ehrlich, S. D. (2018). The politics of fair trade: Moving beyond free trade and protection. Oxford University Press.
Elms, D. (2016). The Origins and Evolution of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Negotiations. Asian Survey, 56(6), 1017–1039. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2016.56.6.1017
Faber, D., Stephens, J., Wallis, V., Gottlieb, R., Levenstein, C., CoatarPeter, P., y Boston Editorial Group Of Cns. (2017). Trump’s Electoral Triumph: Class, Race, Gender, and the Hegemony of the Polluter-Industrial Complex. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 28(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2017.1279867
Fergusson, I. F., McMinimy, M. A., y Williams, B. R. (2015). The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Negotiations and Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/79273
Fraser, N. (2019). ¡Contrahegemonía ya!: Por un populismo progresista que enfrente al neoliberalismo. Siglo XXI Editores.
Friedrichs, G. (2021). U.S. global leadership role and domestic polarization: A role theory approach. Routledge, Taylor y Francis Group.
Gluj, A. (2024). ¿Combinación en el centro? Una aproximación al análisis de las transformaciones en los Estados Unidos desde los años setenta. En A. Gluj y F. Podestá, Desarrollo desigual y combinado. Economía y política en tiempos de reestructuración productiva. Editorial El Colectivo.
Green, M. J., y Goodman, M. P. (2015). After TPP: The Geopolitics of Asia and the Pacific. The Washington Quarterly, 38(4), 19–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2015.1125827
Griffith, M. K., Steinberg, R. H., y Zysman, J. (2017). From great power politics to a strategic vacuum: Origins and consequences of the TPP and TTIP. Business and Politics, 19(4), 573–592. https://doi.org/10.1017/bap.2017.16
Grumbach, J. M., Hacker, J. S., y Pierson, P. (2021). The Political Economies of Red States. En A. Hertel-Fernandez, J. S. Hacker, K. Thelen, y P. Pierson (Eds.), The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power (pp. 209–244). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009029841.008
Hamilton, D. S. (2014). America’s Mega-Regional Trade Diplomacy: Comparing TPP and TTIP. The International Spectator, 49(1), 81–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2014.877223
Kilibarda, K., y Roithmayr, D. (2016, diciembre 1). The Myth of the Rust Belt Revolt. Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/12/the-myth-of-the-rust-belt-revolt.html
Liss, J. (2019). Social and Political Drivers of the Reorientation of U.S. Trade Policy: The Case of U.S. Withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Social Currents, 6(3), 199–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496519825512
Löfflmann, G. (2016). The Pivot between Containment, Engagement, and Restraint: President Obama’s Conflicted Grand Strategy in Asia. Asian Security, 12(2), 92–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2016.1190338
Manza, J., y Crowley, N. (2017). Working Class Hero? Interrogating the Social Bases of the Rise of Donald Trump. The Forum, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2017-0002
McKinney, S. S., y Gilliland, J. R. (2021). Trade Agreements and the U.S. Congress – the Case of the TPP. En D. A. Gantz y J. A. Huerta-Goldman (Eds.), The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership: Analysis and Commentary (pp. 5–39). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316678770.002
McQuarrie, M. (2017). The revolt of the Rust Belt: Place and politics in the age of anger. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), S120–S152. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12328
Merino, G. E. (2017). La geoestrategia globalista del TPP/TTIP y su crisis con el ascenso de Trump y el Brexit. Revista de Estudios Estratégicos, 5, 181–208.
Merino, G. E. (2018). Trump: La fractura en Estados Unidos y sus implicancias en la transición histórica actual. En M. A. Gandásegui y L. Morgenfeld (Eds.), Estados Unidos contra el mundo: Trump y la nueva geopolítica. Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. CLACSO. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvnp0kh7
Monnat, S. M., y Brown, D. L. (2017). More than a Rural Revolt: Landscapes of Despair and the 2016 Presidential Election. Journal of rural studies, 55, 227–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.010
Moody, K. (2017). On new terrain: How capital is reshaping the battleground of class war. Haymarket Books.
Morgan, S., y Lee, J. (2018). Trump Voters and the White Working Class. Sociological Science, 5, 234–245. https://doi.org/10.15195/v5.a10
Morgenfeld, L. A. (2016). Obama, Trump y Clinton, enredados con el TPP. Huellas de Estados Unidos, 11, 98–104.
Panitch, L., y Gindin, S. (2013). La construcción del capitalismo global. La economía política del imperio estadounidense. Akal.
Petri, P. A., y Plummer, M. G. (2016). The Economic Effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: New Estimates (SSRN Scholarly Paper 2723413). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2723413
Piva, A. (2020). Una lectura política de la internacionalización del capital. Algunas hipótesis sobre la actual fase de la internacionalización del capital y el Estado nacional de competencia. En V. Ciolli, F. Naspleda, y R. García Bernado (Eds.), La dimensión inevitable: Estudios sobre la internacionalización del Estado y del capital desde Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.
Post, C. (2017). The roots of Trumpism. Cultural Dynamics, 29(1–2), 100–108. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374017709229
Riley, D. (2021). Líneas de fractura. Lógicas políticas del sistema de partidos en Estados Unidos. New Left Review, 126, 39–56.
Rubinson, M. (2017). Exploring the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Complexities Through the Lens of Its Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. Emory International Law Review, 31(3), 449.
Silver, N. (2016). The mythology of Trump’s ‘working class’ support. FiveThirtyEight.
Skocpol, T., y Hertel-Fernandez, A. (2016). The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism. Perspectives on Politics, 14(3), 681–699. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592716001122
Skonieczny, A. (2019). Populism and Trade: The 2016 US Presidential Election and the Death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. En F. A. Stengel, D. B. MacDonald, y D. Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics (pp. 337–363). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04621-7_13
Solís, M. (2012). The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Can the United States Lead the Way in Asia-Pacific Integration?: The Trans-Pacific Partnership. Pacific Focus, 27(3), 319–341. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1976-5118.2012.01086.x
Sutter, R. (2016). The impact of the 2015–2016 presidential election campaign on American Asian policy debates. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 1(4), 354–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057891116669257
Tellis, A. J. (2014). The geopolitics of the TTIP and the TPP. Adelphi Series, 54(450), 93–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/19445571.2014.1019720
Tosatto, S. (2019). Who killed the TPP? An evaluation of societal influence upon the decision of the US’ withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The Maastricht Journal of Liberal Arts, 11. https://doi.org/10.26481/mjla.2019.v11.687
Twining, D., Kundnani, H., y Sparding, P. (2016). Trans-Pacific Partnership: Geopolitical implications for EU-US relations. European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/5783
Walley, C. J. (2017). Trump’s election and the “white working class”: What we missed. American Ethnologist, 44(2), 231–236. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12473
Williams, J. (2017). White working class: Overcoming class cluelessness in America. Harvard Business Review Press.
Wilson, J. D. (2015). Mega-Regional Trade Deals in the Asia-Pacific: Choosing Between the TPP and RCEP? Journal of Contemporary Asia, 45(2), 345–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2014.956138
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Anabella Gluj
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
