Concern 2: The uncertain future of "fast tracking"

Apart from the existing U.S-Japan disagreements, whether the White House will win the Capitol Hill's approval for the fast track of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) will affect whether the United States will win trust of other member states in the framework.

TPA gives the U.S. government the autonomy to draft free trade deals while limiting the U.S. Congress deliberation; also Capitol Hill has no right to amend established trade acts, but can just vote to pass them.

So far, TPP talks have been conducted under the presupposition that TPA is still valid. But once the talks deepen, such a practice will face increasing challenges because once the government loses TPA, Capitol Hill will be authorized to revise any agreed deals that the United States has reached with others.

Obama has called for bipartisan cooperation on revising TPA. In his State of the Union address delivered on Jan. 28 this year, Obama publicly called for support from lawmakers. But considering the present situation, he is not likely to get the Congress's authorization for a number of reasons.

Previous authorizations were also difficult, due to the suspicion that such authorization was overstepping the Congress' constitutional rights. The pending authorization is far from as simple as the previous ones, which were mostly about traditional sectors. By contrast, TPP consists of all sorts of new trade rules incompatible with old authorizations.

Fast track now amounts to all other nations' touchstone on the U.S. sincerity for TPP, thus Washington's solution to the current issues will influence how the talks will continue.

Concern 3: South Korea's participation in the TPP

South Korea recently announced it would participate in TPP talks by starting bilateral negotiations with existing member states in the framework. Seoul's interest in TPP is like a shot in the arm for the gloomy future of global trade deals. Like Japan, which entered the negotiations last year, all late-comers have to be admitted by all existing members.

South Korea has launched active bilateral talks with all existing member states and held preparatory negotiations with all of them. According to South Korean official, most countries have express acceptance to the newcomer.

Once South Korea becomes an official member, TPP will then represent 41 percent of international GDP and 28 percent of the global trade volume.

Despite Cheongwadae's zeal to join the treaty quickly, there is no possibility it will receive official membership before July, since after all the necessary talks, expected to finish before the end of April, the U.S. Congress will need to review the request for 90 days before the White House accepts South Korea.

Thus, there is reason to believe the TPP is unlikely to become an official treaty in the first half of this year. Apart from that, once South Korea becomes a TPP member, it may also dampen regional economic cooperation in East Asia.

Yang Panpan is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Wang Yaqi is a PhD candidate at Peking University.

The article was written in Chinese and translated by Chen Boyuan.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.