These pages rarely have occasion to defend the economic policies of the Obama administration, which generally consist of reheated Keynesian notions that experience long ago disproved. We're happy to tout progress wherever we can find it, however, which is why we're pleased to note that the President seems to be headed in the right direction on international trade.

The White House is engaged in negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would liberalize trade between NAFTA countries (the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), two South American nations (Chile and Peru) and an assortment of states in the Far East (Australia, Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam). These countries combined to account for $1.5 trillion worth of trade in goods last year and $242 billion in services in 2011. If a deal is struck early next year - and if Congress approves it - the benefits to America's economy would be incalculable.

At the same time, the administration is also involved in negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed agreement to lower trade barriers between the United States and the European Union. Passage of the agreement (which is not as far along as the Trans-Pacific deal) would create the largest free-trade zone in the world, generating combined economic benefits estimated at just under $300 billion per year.

Openness to these agreements marks real progress for President Obama, who campaigned in 2008 on a (in our judgment, cynical) promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. From 1993-2007, NAFTA helped trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico more than triple from $297 billion to $930 billion, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Results like that are difficult to ignore, particularly for a country currently lingering in economic malaise. Passage of these new agreements, however, is far from a sure thing. Globalization has become a source of widespread anxiety, largely because its costs (job losses caused by overseas competition) tend to be concentrated, while its benefits (lower costs to consumers, an improved standard of living) tend to be dispersed.

We have no illusions about the fact that international trade comes with a cost. So does domestic trade, however. Economic competition of any sort always creates individual winners and losers. Its aggregate effects, however, are decidedly less mixed: the growth of wealth and opportunity. The nation would be foolish to look that gift horse in the mouth.

The president should continue pursuing these agreements, and Congress should give him the fast-track authority necessary to pass them in an expedited fashion. Now that the president has come around to embracing a genuine source of growth, we hope partisan politics won't stand in the way.