White House Doubts TTP Will Be Ratified Before Obama Leaves Office

The US Congress will likely not affirm the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) free trade agreement during the last two months of President Barack Obama's administration, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Earnest stated that the prospects of the agreement being ratified before President Obama leaves the office "are not very good."

The spokesman, however, said that if Congress does not move forward with the TPP agreement, the United States will miss a significant opportunity.

He explained that other countries, which intended to accept the TPP agreement, would benefit from various economic partnerships and gain advantage over the United States.

The United States will be "consequentially negatively affected by the refusal of the Congress to ratify the TPP," he added.

President-elect Donald Trump was very critical during the 2016 US presidential campaign of the TPP as well as other free trade agreements, despite Obama's commitment to have the agreement signed before 2017.

The TPP would join the United States with 11 Pacific Rim nations in a deal to lower tariffs and other trade barriers on thousands of goods and services. The participant countries in the TPP account for about 40 percent of the global economy.