Japan

Failure to sign the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] would demonstrate that the United States and Japan cannot move past friction to work in areas such as internationalization of financial services, protection of intellectual property and governance of the Internet economy that are central to the 21st century economy.

[Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Washington] — the dates for which have yet to be announced — would be the perfect occasion for President Barack Obama and Abe to shake hands on a freshly concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership deal between the United States, Japan and 10 other countries in the Asia-Pacific. I think what [the Japanese] would like is they could come celebrate. But it’s not clear that would be the case. The longer it takes for TPA [trade promotion authority] to be in place, I think the fewer the chances that there could be enough progress for them to be celebrating by late April.

The temperature is rising, and I think, at least now, we have President Obama making very direct comments to support the trade agenda in a way that I hadn’t seen in a long while.