Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN show today featured an interview with President Obama. It was a very interesting interview and you can find the free audio podcast here [I recommend the segment from 8:07 to 8:37]. In discussing the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty, President Obama said:
“And the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a historic agreement cobbled together among a very diverse set of countries. And the basic argument is simple. This is going to be the world’s largest market. And if we’re not setting the rules out there, somebody else is.
And what we have been able to do is not just establish a trade agreement among these countries, because many of them we already have trading agreements with. What this does is it raises the standards for trade so that there is greater protection for labor rights, a greater protection for environmental rights, greater transparency, greater protection for intellectual property, which is so important to a knowledge-based economy like ours.” [rest of the full transcript here]
{“Knowledge-based Economy” in “Facebook” blue in tribute to CEO Mark “I’m pro-knowledge economy” Zuckerberg}