This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, July 1st, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Hopes are dim for a more trade-friendly White House in 2017.

Phil Levy, a senior fellow on the Global Economy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, argues the Trans-Pacific

Partnership may be flawed, but on balance is beneficial to trade across the Pacific. We spoke during a Cato Institute

conference on the TPP held yesterday. Barack Obama has not been a very good

salesman on trade. He has pitched his support of trade agreements in the context of sort of a

zero-sum game where either we win and China loses or China wins and we lose, which of course from the perspective

of economics and wealth creation globally, that's just not the way to sell trade.

I agree with you. I think it's been very problematic the way he's approached this.

Problems in two dimensions. One, he hasn't really made the case at all on basically the virtues of trade,

what would gain some trade. Part of that is he ran for office pitching himself against that.

He talked about withdrawal from NAFTA, he talked about how NAFTA had caused the loss of a million jobs.

Those were fallacious arguments when he made them. But he hasn't, well he sort

reversed himself on other arguments that he made during the campaign. He never quite reversed

himself on that one. So on economic grounds, the problem with his pitch is he's saying past trade agreements were bad but sign this one but but you approve this one

On the foreign policy argument is so then he's left turning to foreign policy because he won't make the economic case as much.

And this is putting it as sort of the US against China who will write the rules.

I think it is fair to say that what happens with the TPP will have a big effect on

U.S. influence in the region and it is true that China would be happy to step up and

take some of the influence of the U of the US would lose should this fail.

I think the who will write the rules is a little problematic since China has actually

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