The United States is engaged in negotiations with Japan and 10 other countries to form a regional free trade agreement (FTA)—the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). In the negotiations, the United States and the other TPP partner-countries seek to build "a comprehensive, next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment and addresses new and traditional trade issues and 21 st century challenges." The TPP partners also envision the agreement to be a building block towards the establishment of a broader, Asian-Pacific regional FTA, sometimes referred to as the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). Of the 12 TPP countries, Japan is the most recent to join the negotiations. On March 15, 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan would formally seek to participate in the negotiations to establish the TPP. The announcement followed an initial expression of interest in November 2011 by then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. In the intervening months, Japanese supporters of the TPP—including representatives of major companies—and TPP opponents—including representatives of the very vocal and politically influential agricultural sector—engaged in debate. In addition, parliamentary elections led to the formation of a new government under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Abe as prime minister. In his March 15 statement, Prime Minister Abe acknowledged the interests and sensitivities of the agricultural groups, but he also insisted that Japan needed to take advantage of "this last window of opportunity" to enter the negotiations, if it is to grow economically. On April 12, 2013, the United States announced its support for Japan's participation in the TPP. The announcement came after a series of discussions on conditions for U.S. support and outstanding bilateral issues. As a result of the discussions the two sides agreed on measures to address these issues during and in parallel with the main TPP negotiations. On April 20, the then-11TPP countries formally invited Japan to participate in the negotiations, and on July 23 Japan formally joined. Congress has a direct and oversight role in U.S. participation in the TPP. It must approve implementing legislation, if a final TPP agreement is to apply to the United States. Some Members of Congress have already weighed in on whether Japan should be allowed to participate in the TPP and under what conditions. More may do so as the process proceeds. The Obama Administration has been proceeding in negotiating the TPP as if trade promotion authority (TPA), which expired on June 30, 2007, were in force. TPA is the authority that Congress gives to the President to enter into trade agreements that can receive expedited legislative consideration. The Administration has been adhering to consultation requirements and notification deadlines that have been an integral part of previous TPA or fast-track statutes. On April 24, then-Acting USTR Demetrios Marantis notified Congress of the United States to begin negotiations with Japan as part of the TPP. The TPP is the leading U.S. trade policy initiative of the Obama Administration and a pillar of its efforts to "rebalance" U.S. foreign policy priorities toward the Asia-Pacific region by playing a more active role in shaping the region's rules and norms. As the second-largest economy in Asia, the third-largest economy in the world, and a key link in the global supply chain, Japan's participation would be pivotal to the credibility and viability of the TPP as a regional trade arrangement. The inclusion of Japan would expand the amount of U.S. trade and foreign investment that the TPP would cover if implemented. For Japan, participation in the TPP could potentially transform its economy by providing unprecedented access to the Japanese market for foreign exporters and investors. It could also force Tokyo to confront structural economic problems that have long impeded economic growth. It would also symbolize Japan's continued position as an economic power in East Asia, an image that has been tarnished by decades of economic stagnation and the growth of China. Japan's participation in the TPP has important implications for the U.S.-Japan relationship. For example, it already has renewed a focus on long-standing issues, such as access to Japan's markets for autos, agricultural products, and insurance, which have remained irritants in the relationship. New issues will undoubtedly also be raised in the process. The TPP is an evolving regional free trade agreement (FTA). It was originally formed as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership—an FTA now in effect among Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, and Brunei (the so-called "P-4"). In the fall of 2008, the United States, along with Australia, Peru, and Vietnam, joined the negotiations to accede to the arrangement. Malaysia joined as the ninth negotiating partner in October 2010. On November 14, 2009, President Obama committed the United States to engage with the TPP countries to transform the original P-4 pact into a regional arrangement with broad-based membership and "the high standards worthy of a 21 st century trade agreement." After several months of discussions, the nine partners announced a framework for the agreement in time for the ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Honolulu, Hawaii, which was held November 8-13, 2011. The TPP partners conducted a series of rounds since that time and are aiming to complete the agreement by the end of 2013. As reflected in the framework, the TPP partners envision a comprehensive arrangement covering a broad range of trade and trade-related activities, similar in structure to a number of recently concluded U.S. FTAs. These activities include market access for goods and services; government procurement; foreign investment; technical barriers to trade; trade remedies; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; intellectual property rights; worker rights; and environmental protection. The TPP countries also agreed to pursue cross-cutting issues such as regulatory coherence, competitiveness, and business facilitation, also known as transnational supply and production chains; the participation of small and medium-sized companies; economic development; and potential disciplines on the state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The TPP participants also envision the TPP to go beyond typical FTAs by being: a regional agreement that facilitates trade by minimizing the "noodle bowl" effect that has been created by different sets of rules under the more than 100 bilateral and regional FTAs that exist in the Asia Pacific-region; an agreement that addresses trade challenges that are emerging in the 21 st century, for example, cloud computing and SOEs, that have not been addressed in previous FTAs nor fully in the World Trade Organization (WTO) because they did not exist or were considered not as important; and a "living agreement" that will not restrict its membership to the 11 countries but will be open to other countries acceding to it as long as they are willing to commit to its provisions and will take on new issues as they arise. Marantis's April 12, 2013, announcement followed a series of U.S.-Japanese discussions that began in February 2012. Regarding autos, as a result of these discussions Japan agreed that under the proposed TPP, U.S. tariffs imports of Japanese motor vehicles will be phased out over a period equal to the longest phase-out period agreed to under the agreement. Japan also agreed to increase the number of U.S.-made vehicles that can be imported into Japan under its Preferential Handling Procedure (PHP), from 2,000 per vehicle type to 5,000 per vehicle type. In addition, the two countries agreed to convene separate negotiations that will address issues regarding non-tariff measures (NTMs) pertaining to auto trade, including transparency in regulations, standards, certification, "green" and other new technology vehicles, and distribution. In addition, the parallel auto negotiations are to address the establishment of a special "safeguard" provision to deal with injurious surges in auto imports and of a special tariff "snap-back" mechanism to deal with a partner's failure to fulfill the commitments on auto trade. To address U.S. concerns regarding insurance, Japan announced that the government would not approve new or modified cancer insurance products and/or stand-alone medical insurance products for sale by Japan Post until it has been determined that a "level playing field" has been established in competition between private insurers and Japan Post. Furthermore, the two sides agreed to hold another separate set of bilateral negotiations, parallel to the TPP talks, to address issues regarding non-tariff measures (NTMs) in insurance, government procurement, competition policy, express delivery, and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures. The parallel negotiations are to achieve "tangible and meaningful" results by the completion of the main TPP negotiations and will be legally binding at the time a TPP agreement would enter into force. (Those parallel negotiations were launched on August 7.) The Administration notified Congress on April 24 of its intention to launch negotiations with Japan. Japan officially joined the negotiations on July 23 at the end of the 18 th round of negotiations A brief overview of U.S.-Japan economic ties can provide context for understanding U.S. and Japanese interests in the TPP and the potential implications from various perspectives. It could also shed light on opportunities and challenges presented by an FTA that includes the United States and Japan. A U.S.-Japan FTA is not a new idea, but it is a policy option that has failed to take hold in the past because of some fundamental issues which have been seemingly intractable. The United States and Japan are the world's first and third-largest economic powers. Together they account for over 30% of gross world product. The two countries remain very important economic partners, accounting for large shares of each other's foreign trade and investment, even though their relative economic significance to one another has declined over the last few years.