U.S. President Barack Obama will soon head to Hawaii for the 2011 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, November 8-13. Hosted by the United States, it and eight other APEC economies are holding talks to reach broad outlines of a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.

Japan has been singled out to attend with the expectation that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will do as the U.S. wishes, and align Japan with APEC and the free-trade agreement.

At first blush the issue seems to be a win-win economic one for all signatories and a huge step in the right direction of nudging the world back from the protectionist sentiment that has prevailed for the past decade or more. Nothing could be further from the reality, at least for the Japanese people. One reason is that the TPP would essentially be a Japan-U.S. economic partnership because they will account for about 90 percent of the members' total GDP.