Who would have thought that Andrew Little and Donald Trump would have anything in common?

But the Labour leader and the Republican President are at one when it comes to the Trans Pacific Partnership, they don't want a bar of it.

Bill English was like the cat who'd got the cream when he emerged from a meeting with the Japanese Primer Minister Shinzo Abe and that's hardly surprising, given that Abe once said the TPP without United States would be meaningless.  Clearly he's since had a change of heart, not only endorsing the deal but wanting it to be put in place as originally scheduled in March next year.

Labour, which actually provided the impetus for the deal in this country under Helen Clark, is now vehemently opposed to it under Andrew Little who insisted his MPs toed the line which at the time saw Phil Goff breaking ranks.

This is a divisive agreement with last November's vote in Parliament at 61 to 57 in favour essentially mirroring public opinion.

Leading the naysayers is Auckland law Professor Jane Kelsey who describes it at a zombie deal but raising the prospect of Labour crumbling if they're in power after the election.   

Japan and this country don't want the original agreement changed, obviously hoping the United States will change its mind.

That'll only happen if Trump's impeached and Mike Pence, who in the past has supported TPP until he was muzzled by his boss, takes over.   And if Labour doesn't win the election, chances are under new leadership, they'd be back on board as well.

Put all the rhetoric for an against to one side and reflect on what it actually means to this trading nation, hooking up with the third biggest economy in the world, Japan, and having unfettered access to a market bigger than the European Union.

Few can legitimately argue that the free trade agreement with China, the world's second biggest economy, hasn't been beneficial to this country. It was a gift delivered to the Key Government just as it was taking over the Treasury benches, just as the TPP could conceivably be a gift to an incoming Labour Government, if they weren't so bloody minded.