Yet contemporary debates about American grand strategy have elided this truth. In recent years, policymakers have quarreled over the wisdom of “pivoting” to Asia and over the best way to do so. But whatever the merits of “pivoting,” Air-Sea Battle, and all the rest, these ideas are only second-order solutions. They seek to translate America’s economic might into national power, but as a result, they are also determined and limited by the extent of that might in the first place.

Although policymakers refuse to say this publicly, the logic of their arguments leads to an uncomfortable truth: if China continues to grow faster than the United States and its allies—a big “if,” but a real possibility nonetheless—then Washington will eventually be forced to cede Asian-Pacific primacy to China. In other words, the success of these strategies depends entirely on events outside of the United States’s control.

The TPP can reassert some of this control and shore up the long-term foundations of American power. As Robert Gilpin famously observed, great powers rise, fall, or maintain their primacy depending primarily on “differential rates of economic growth.” By enacting the TTP, the United States would be putting in place policies that ensure a rate of national power production that is relatively more favorable to the United States and its Pacific allies than to China, helping to preserve a favorable balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.

This strategy can succeed. What worked in the past can work again, and the United States was once the master of harnessing and even influencing long-term trends in national power. The most famous example is the Marshall Plan. The Plan was an enormous success not because it benefitted the American economy in the long run (although it did), but rather because it bolstered the economies of American allies at a time when the United States needed strong partners to fence in an expansionist Soviet Union. Washington could have dithered myopically over the economic details of the Plan. Instead, a Democratic President worked quickly with a Republican Congress to execute a strategic coup. By eschewing a focus on narrow economic interests in favor of rebuilding the strength of its partners, the United States was able to craft a strong coalition that could oppose Soviet expansionism when needed.

Today, Asia needs a 21st Century Marshall Plan. The TPP will not reverse China’s relative ascendance, but it will slow it and move the region toward a balance of power more favorable to the United States.

Back to Congress

Congress should recognize the strategic benefits of the TPP. Happily, there is increasing momentum in favor of the deal. Just recently, Congress granted the President the fast-track authority that he needs to finish the negotiation and bring the final treaty before Congress. This was a good first step, but more will be needed.

In the next year, the Obama administration will call upon Congress again to pass the final version of the TPP. At that point, American lawmakers should consider not only the absolute economic benefits of the treaty but also its relative strategic ones. With those consequences in mind, it will be easy for Congress to endorse the deal and take a crucial step toward cementing the United States’s long-term primacy in the Asia-Pacific.

The TPP is no ordinary trade treaty, and Congress needs to stop treating it as one.

Sean Mirski is co-editor of Crux of Asia: China, India and the Emerging Global Order.