A Trade Deal With a Long Past and an Uncertain Future

Nearly eight months after the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed, its fate is still up in the air. While giving a speech in Havana on Sept. 26, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated his commitment to ratify the agreement before the end of the year. On the same day, Japan's legislature convened for a 66-day special session to discuss, among other things, bills to adopt the TPP. Given the ruling Liberal Democratic Party coalition's supermajority in both houses of the legislature, the TPP is almost certain to pass in Japan. But that will do little to quell regional doubts over the deal's future, which has become increasingly subject to the vagaries of U.S. politics. ...