New Zealand has, at times, been unduly naive in opening up our markets to foreign competition, with the result that we have little left to offer or negotiate with when a TPP comes along - but, as the world's most efficient producers of dairy produce, we have much to gain if we can obtain free access to the world's biggest markets.
The trouble with the TPP, though, is that it is not just a free-trade arrangement. As Jacinda Ardern and her ministers have recognised, it is the extra baggage it carries that is the problem.
The deal offered by the TPP involves much more than removing tariffs and other barriers to trade. It also requires the parties to provide within their domestic economies an unimpeded level playing-field for international corporations.
This may sound innocent enough, but what it really means is that any interference with the "free market" by national Governments is outlawed.
The result is that the TPPA is in reality a charter for multinationals, giving them carte blanche to do what they like and able to object to any measure that limits their operations or places them at a disadvantage.
Our economy, it is clear, exhibits a number of common practices that could fall foul of these provisions.
Our use of co-operatives to market some products - dairy products or kiwifruit - could come under attack, as would our use of an agency such as Pharmac to negotiate, on behalf of the whole community, prices of pharmaceuticals. Regulating the sale of certain products, such as cigarettes, would be similarly vulnerable.
The TPP goes further.
Multinationals which believe they have been disadvantaged by government action can take our Government to special tribunals - and if they can show their profits will suffer, they can force the Government to change New Zealand law to suit them, even if that means the Government must go back on promises made to voters.
So much for democracy, self-government and sovereignty.
This is the notorious Investor-State Dispute Settlement procedure (ISDS) that Ardern has signalled she will try to change before she will agree to sign up to a TPP - but she will not find it easy to secure the change and will come under great pressure to sign up even without it.
There is of course no objection to seeking agreement on the rights and duties of foreign companies that wish to trade in our country - but that should not mean a one-way advantage for those corporations at our expense.
Rather than giving rights to foreign companies far in excess of those enjoyed by our own companies, such a treaty should focus on the obligation of foreign companies to comply with our laws, and to observe the rules laid down by our own sovereign Government.
If the TPP drafters insist on the ISDS provisions, it is vital our Prime Minister takes a stand and refuses to sign.
In doing so she could strike a vital blow, not just for New Zealand but for everyone.
Others might then have the courage to follow suit, and that could mean the end of so-called trade deals, now and in the future, that violate the principles of democratic government by allowing multinational corporations to decide what is and is not the law of the land.
Bryan Gould is a former British MP and Waikato University Vice-Chancellor.
