An Agreement was Reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

A gigantic and controversial trade agreement just became a real thing.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—which was finally agreed upon after five years of often tense negotiations—will set trading standards and cuts tariffs for 12 Pacific rim countries, including the US and Japan.

The deal was signed after five days of final negotiations in Atlanta. Supporters say it will be worth billions to the worldwide economy, but critics—of which there are many, including presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders—argue the deal favors large corporations and criticize that the negotiations were made in secret.

“TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that have been supported by corporate America and that cost America millions of decent-paying jobs,” Sanders wrote in a news release. “In the Senate, I will do all that I can to defeat this agreement.”

President Barack Obama consideres the agreement a major victory, and says the agreement “levels the playing field for our farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes that various countries put on our products.”

Here are five important points to know about TPP:

• It started 10 years ago with a trade agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.
• Since then, it’s grown to include 12 countries that, in total, have a population of about 800 million and are responsible for 40 percent of the world’s trade.
• Critics argue that the deal’s negotiations happened in secret and the terms favor big corporations.
• The largest direct economic benefits are expected for Japan. The US participated as a strategic move in part to try to force China, which wasn’t included in the partnership, to adhere to the same terms.
• The agreement will next need to be ratified by each individual country, including US Congress.