Although billed as a "trade agreement," the treaty calls for economic and political "integration" among the TPP members. Adopting the model that transformed the European Common Market into the European Union, the TPP creates regional governing structures and processes aimed at eventual convergence into a similar EU-style super-state.

Currently, the TPP's negotiating member states include the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. However, as we have been reporting here for years (see here and here ), the TPP architects have long stated their plans to use the TPP as a "stepping stone" to a much larger Free Trade Area of the Asian Pacific (FTAAP) that includes China and Russia.