Officials and politicians from President Barack Obama down have portrayed it as the most important aspect of America’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to the Asia-Pacific, and of its determination to help set the rules there rather than let China write them.
Mr Kerry spoke positively of the progress made at the TPP talks in Hawaii, conceding only that “there remain details to be hashed out.”
Ministers at the talks claimed that the deal was “98%” done. But the devil is in those details, and in any complex negotiation, the last bit is the hardest.