(May 27): Efforts are under way by the Republican-controlled United States Senate and the White House to find a way to circumvent a controversial trade bill that was passed last Friday, so as to allow Malaysia to remain a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

The Huffington Post said on Saturday that the US Senate approved a bill that will "fast-track" trade agreements negotiated by the president, and this included the controversial TPPA trade agreement, but a provision on crackdown on human trafficking remained.

Following up on the above report, which also said that Malaysia's current Tier 3 ranking in a US anti-human trafficking report may see it being excluded from the TPPA, the American online news aggregator and blog yesterday questioned the need for any exemption, considering it implies the US defends the practice of slavery.

The Huffington Post surmises that the main reason for any possible exemption was the threat from China and the key route that Malaysia has in the Straits of Malacca.

US president Barack Obama and the Republican-controlled Senate is wary of the rise of China's power in Southeast Asia, especially its expansion in the South China Sea.

Calling the Strait of Malacca as China's jugular vein, The Huffington Post says the thin waterway links the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and about 85% of China's imported oil comes through it, quoting the US Department of Defense's latest estimates.

The South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca are key to any trade pact in the region as 60% of international commerce travels through these waters.

Hence, reaffirming ties with Malaysia via the TPPA, the US is hopeful of securing its ability to pressure China, and possibly punish it for disruptive behaviour in the region.

A recent Pentagon report also concludes that the strait will become more important as China's energy demand grows.

According to the Post, for the US, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) without Malaysia is a TPP that is far less strategically valuable to the US, and one that also sends a much weaker signal to China.

Obama's opponents in Congress are insisting that Malaysia should not be included in the deal at all, despite the efforts to modify the language of the approved bill to allow countries, such as Malaysia, to state that plans are in place to combat human trafficking.

They say that Malaysia would already prefer to partner with the US rather than China, hence any fear that Malaysia would be forced to get closer to China if left out of the TPPA, is unfounded.

Such preference would only force Malaysia to improve its human trafficking record so as to get on board the TPPA as soon as possible, the senators said.

“If nothing changes, Malaysia should not be in this agreement," Senator Sherrod Brown (a Democrat, from Ohio) told The Huffington Post after the Senate passed the trade promotion bill on Friday night.

Brown added that “no country should get in with that designation,” referring to Malaysia's Tier 3 ranking. He also told The Huffington Post that he plans to try to build momentum in Congress against granting the president trade promotion authority and is hopeful that Republicans will be unable to tweak the anti-slavery language in the Senate bill.

According to blog, if there is no change to the bill, then Malaysia are out and Obama's vision of a strong TPP and US authority across the Pacific could be shattered. – The Malaysian Insider