Is O right about trade?

Things to do in your last year in the White House.

O looks forward to signing into law the TPP deal, though all the Democrats seeking nomination now oppose it.

Says the story,

The president could sign the deal with the other nations that are participating as soon as Feb. 4. 

Then, an economic review will be submitted to Congress, where the relevant committees, followed by the full House and Senate, will consider the deal.

Mr. Obama has called the agreement "the most pro-labor, pro-environment, progressive trade deal in history, that eliminates just about every tariff on American manufacturing goods."

Ours or theirs?

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, helped usher TPA through Congress and has argued that the U.S. should be writing the rules on trade agreements. 

But he hasn't said if or when Congress will vote on the agreement.

"TPP has great potential," Ryan told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in October, "but we want to scrub this trade agreement to make sure that it reaches and meets the standards that we call for in TPA."

Even with Republican help, the president will face opposition from Democrats. 

All three Democratic presidential candidates oppose the trade deal, as does Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts.

Economists generally don't approve protectionism, as a rule, thinking it protects only those in favored industries at everyone else's expense.

Not even Democrats.