The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), was a proposed trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. In the United States, the proposal was signed on 4 February 2016 but not ratified as a result of significant domestic political opposition. After taking office, the newly elected President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from TPP in January 2017, therefore ensuring the TPP could not be ratified as required and did not enter into force. The remaining countries negotiated a new trade agreement called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incorporated most of the provisions of the TPP and which entered into force on 30 December 2018.

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists, and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.