First, I'd not lump NAFTA and TPP together. They go for different purpose and different ideas.

NAFTA aims to tie Mexico/Canada to U.S. by sharing some of the U.S. assets. That idea is very similar to Nixon-Xiaoping treaties in 1972 (which Trump also seems to have an idea to thwart).

TPP is clearly a transnational corp project, not a U.S. project. People often say "hey TPP overrides national laws with corporate courts", what they overlook is that it overrides U.S. national laws with corporate courts as well. So it'a not "U.S. tramples national governments in favor of itself", it's actually "U.S. tramples itself and other governments in favor of corporations".

In this way, those treaties are very different and I think it's important to differentiate.


Second. When talking about free trade - you should always mind subject, i.e. WHOSE free trade are we talking about. Historically, "free trade" was always about developed countries companies having access to inferior country markets. I don't know how much of a "free" trade it was, but the term was there. So when a person says "I'm all for free trade" meaning "I like the global markets and free exchange of labour, goods and services", it's important to understand that there's no such thing. It's an idea which is promoted, but never implemented.