“Failure to move forward … would be a profound setback for American interests in the region,” Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. “It would be a signal that we do not have staying power and cause countries to hedge on their alignment with the United States.”

The administration is running out of time to get the accord ratified by Congress and faces an uphill slog to win approval with the leading presidential candidates in both parties opposed to the deal. Republican front-runner Donald Trump has denounced free trade deals as harmful to American workers and a drag on the U.S. economy. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who supported the TPP as secretary of state under Obama, has come out against the TPP under pressure from the left, including labor unions and her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who also opposes it.

But in a conference call with reporters, administration officials warned that China is poised to step into an economic and leadership void if the U.S. falters in the pact with 11 other nations, including Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia. While Trump and Sanders have called outsourcing and trade imbalances with China detrimental to the United States, White House allies said that the economic competition from China, which is not included in the TPP, is a reason to endorse the deal.

So apparently it’s not a trade deal, and it won’t provide meaningful benefits, it’s a political and diplomatic ploy to be used in a war against China.

Do you want to lose your job just to f%$# with China?

Well, I don’t either.