However, there are also valid arguments against TPA and TPP from a conservative perspective–and these arguments go well beyond how much we can trust Barack Obama.  So I think it premature for some on the right to try to excommunicate TPA/TPP dissenters from serious conservatism.

First of all, it is unclear whether unequivocal “free trade” is a sine qua non of conservatism.  If conservatives want to say that, they will have to cast figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan out of the conservative narrative.  Lincoln and Coolidge, after all, were major proponents of tariffs, and, while Reagan talked about opening up trade, he also took steps that many conservatives today would decry as “protectionist” (and even decried then as “protectionist”).  As Alan Tonelson relates, Reagan did things like impose quotas on imported cars from Japan.  That’s hardly free trade.

Secondly (and perhaps more pressingly), it is far from clear that TPP will actually promote free trade.  As I’ve suggested before, much of what goes by “free trade” in contemporary political discussions isn’t actually free trade but instead the creation of internationally administered systems of managed trade.  Now, perhaps those internationally administered systems of managed trade are helpful and worth advancing, but they are certainly not free trade.