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President Barack Obama has strongly argued in favour of an international trade agreement, saying that the US must write the rules for global economy and not China that may put American workers and products at a disadvantage in the absence of a level playing field.
"In a lot of parts of the world, the rules are unfair. The playing field is uneven. That puts American businesses and workers at a disadvantage... We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength," said the US President.
"If we don't write the rules for trade around the world, China will. They'll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand and locks American-made goods out," he said.
Obama claimed that the US wins everytime when the rules of trade are fair and its workers are given a level playing field.
"So this is why I'm such a strong supporter of new trade agreements. They're gonna help our workers compete and our businesses compete. This is not a left issue or a right issue or a business or a labor issue. It is about fairness and equity and access," he said.
Passing of the trade agreements is part of his agenda to generate new jobs and boost up the economy, he said.
"I view smart trade agreements as a vital piece of middle-class economics. Not a contradiction to middle-class economics. It's a part and parcel of it," the US President said.
He said the Trans-Pacific Partnership currently being worked upon has to do with the Asia-Pacific region and reflects US values in ways that frankly some previous trade agreements did not.
"It's the highest standard, most progressive trade deal in history. It's got strong, enforceable provisions for workers, preventing things like child labor," he said.
"It's got strong, enforceable provisions on the environment, helping us to do things that haven't been done before to prevent wildlife trafficking or deforestation or dealing with our oceans. And these are enforceable in the agreement," he added.
