Obama presses case for Pacific trade deal as China looms

US President Barack Obama told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Monday that any failure to sign off on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal among 12 nations around the region due to political infighting in America’s legislature would set the stage for China — which is excluded from the deal — to step in. “We want China to be successful. We want China to continue to embark on its peaceful rise,” Obama said. “I think that’s good for the world….We just want to make sure that the rules of the road allow us to compete and everybody else to compete. We don’t want China to use its size to muscle other countries in the region around rules that disadvantage us.”