The agreement being negotiated by the US-led 12-nation regional trade bloc known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has engendered much controversy. Its origins can be traced to a little-known four-party free trade agreement concluded in 2005 by New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Brunei. It was US participation and its subsequent hegemonic role in the later negotiations of this group (collectively known as the Pacific Four or P-4) that resulted not only in an expansion of its membership but also in the setting of an agenda for what critics charge is a ‘corporate charter’.