The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a regional free trade agreement (FTA) among 12 Pacific-facing nations—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam—that was concluded in October 2015. The TPP agreement is pending congressional approval, which is required for it to enter into force. If approved, TPP would become the largest FTA in which the United States is a participant. TPP seeks to liberalize trade across a vast range of goods and services, including agricultural products. As such, it could enhance export market opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products while also raising the level of competition in agricultural markets in North America. Exports make a vital contribution to U.S. agriculture, absorbing about 20% of total agricultural production, while representing a far larger share of the production of certain commodities, including wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton, almonds, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts, to name a few. As such, foreign demand for U.S. food and fiber contributes materially to higher commodity prices and farm income. The positive ripple effects from farm trade extend beyond farmers and ranchers to rural communities; farm input industries that provide seed, fertilizer, and machinery; and commodity processors and food manufacturers with a stake in foreign markets. Exports also can contribute to higher input prices for food to the extent that additional foreign demand is not met by an increase in domestic supplies, although commodity costs amount to a fraction of overall retail food prices. Rising farm productivity, market-oriented U.S. farm policies, and the prospect of competing on more favorable terms for a larger share of the faster-growing food markets in many developing countries are among the reasons that negotiations aimed at liberalizing agricultural trade among TPP countries have elicited a high level of interest and broad-based engagement from U.S. agriculture and food industry interests. TPP countries already loom large in U.S. farm and food trade: Between 2011 and 2015, U.S. agricultural exports to these countries averaged $63.5 billion, or 42% of total exports, while TPP countries were the source for $60.9 billion in U.S. agricultural imports, amounting to about 47% of the U.S. total. Even so, it appears the TPP agreement reached in October 2015 would significantly improve market access for many U.S. food and agricultural products, potentially enhancing U.S. competitiveness in a number of TPP markets. At the same time, the trade deal also would provide TPP partners with greater access to U.S. product markets, potentially raising the level of competition among some U.S. products. In May 2016, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a report on the projected economic impact of the agreement on the U.S. economy as a whole as well as on specific industry sectors, including agriculture and food, and on consumers as mandated by P.L. 114-26 , the law that provides the President with trade promotion authority, and as discussed in the section titled " Projected TPP Impacts on U.S. Agriculture ." The text below identifies four considerations about the TPP agreement that are particularly relevant for U.S. food and agriculture. Next, the report summarizes key conclusions of the projected effects of implementing TPP for U.S. food and agriculture based on analysis undertaken by ITC and the American Farm Bureau Federation. This is followed by a partial snapshot of some of the higher-profile changes in market access for agricultural products in the agreement, a summary of selected provisions beyond market access that are of particular interest to stakeholders in food and agriculture, a brief overview of industry reactions to the agreement, and a review of what actions need to occur for the agreement to enter into force for the United States. An overarching consideration is that among significant TPP markets, the United States lacks free trade agreements (FTAs) with five TPP countries: Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam. Among these five, the most significant for U.S. agricultural exports are Japan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. With a combined population of roughly 250 million, these three countries likely offer the greatest potential for boosting U.S. farm and food exports via lower tariffs, or expanded tariff rate quotas (TRQs). Significantly, all three countries impose much higher average applied most-favored-nation (MFN) agricultural tariffs than the United States, which could work to the advantage of U.S. farm and food exports versus domestic suppliers and non-TPP export competitors as tariffs decline under the agreement. In 2014, applied MFN tariffs on agricultural products averaged 5.1% in the United States, 9.3% in Malaysia, 14.3% in Japan, and 16.3% in Vietnam. Moreover, as illustrated in Figure 1 , existing tariff peaks are far higher for a number of product categories. Examples include dairy and poultry imports into Canada; bovine meat, rice, and dairy products into Japan; and Vietnamese tariffs across a number of food categories. Japan is likely the leading agricultural market opportunity in the TPP due to its highly protected farm and food markets, large population, and high per capita gross domestic product. Vietnam, with the fourth-largest population in the TPP and a fast-growing economy, is viewed as a market that could hold significant future growth potential for U.S. farm and food products. At the same time, preferential access that U.S. food and agricultural interests have to markets in Canada and Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would become available to a wider group of potential competitors over time as tariffs are lowered within the TPP zone. For instance, U.S. rice grower interests have expressed concern that the additional access the agreement would provide for U.S rice in Japan might not offset the potential loss of U.S. rice exports to Mexico as Mexico progressively lowers its 20% duty on Vietnamese rice under TPP. Also significant is that potential key export expansion opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural interests, such as beef and pork to Japan and dairy products to Japan, Canada, and Vietnam, generally are to be phased in over a period of years, if not decades. For certain products in certain countries, including Japan for beef, pork, and whey powder, and the United States for some dairy products, safeguard measures allow for additional tariffs to be imposed for a period of time if imports should exceed specified thresholds. Generally, the quantitative trigger level for invoking safeguard measures would increase over time even as duties imposed under the safeguard are scheduled to be reduced or eliminated. If the United States chooses not to implement the TPP agreement, U.S. agricultural export competitors would have an opportunity to gain a competitive edge over U.S. exports of certain products to Japan and elsewhere. This could occur as a result of existing preferential tariff arrangements—such as Australia's Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan—or by ratifying an agreement similar to TPP without U.S. participation. As an example, Australia already enjoys preferential tariffs rates on its beef exports to Japan compared with the tariff rates imposed on U.S. beef. TPP would place U.S. beef on an even footing with Australian product in Japan. Also, while the European Union is not party to the TPP, it is negotiating FTAs with Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam that could enhance its competitive position in those markets. How "Brexit," or the vote in the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, will affect the course of these negotiations is not yet entirely clear. Finally, it is worth recognizing at the outset what the TPP agreement is not designed to accomplish. Similar to other FTAs, the TPP generally would not address domestic subsidy regimes that may tend to distort trade. Attempting to impose disciplines around domestic subsidies schemes has generally been the province of multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). ITC, in a report issued in May 2016, concluded that TPP would provide significant benefits for U.S. agriculture, mainly by eliminating tariffs and expanding markets protected by TRQs. The report was mandated by the trade promotion authority legislation ( P.L. 114-26 ). The quantitative results in the report reflect ITC's model, which projects TPP outcomes for U.S. agriculture in year 15 (2032), compared with a baseline scenario without TPP. Among the model's results were the following: U.S. agricultural exports would be $7.2 billion higher (2.6%), while agricultural imports would increase by $2.7 billion (1.5%). Other macro effects include a gain of $10 billion (0.5%) in U.S. agricultural output and an increase of 0.5% in agricultural employment. U.S. dairy product exports would increase by $1.85 billion, or 18%, while processed foods and beef would be expected to post gains of $1.54 billion (3.8%) and $875 million (8.4%), respectively. But corn and rice exports could be marginally lower. U.S. imports of processed foods are projected to be $427 million higher (1.1%) with TPP than without it, while beef imports would be increased by $419 billion (5.7%), and imported dairy products would post an increase of $349 million, or 10.3%. U.S. export gains stem primarily from greater market access via lower tariffs and expanded TRQs, with the lion's share of the total increase of $7.2 billion concentrated in Japan ($3.6 billion) and Vietnam ($3.3 billion).