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Established in 2002 by New Zealand, Singapore, and Chile, the Trans -Pacific Partnership agreement then became one of the biggest regional trade agreements in Asia - Pacific. Currently the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated among the Unite d States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. This agreement has became very controversial because of its ambitious vision. Member-states are negotiating market access for goods, services, and agriculture. Furthermore negotiations are being conducted on disciplines to intellectual property rights, trade in services, government procurement, investment, rules of origin, competition, labor, and environmental standards and other issues. Reality speaks; the rules of this agreement are intended to be more rigorous than comparable rules found in the World Trade Organization. On July 23, 2013, Japan formally joined the negotiations as the last member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The writer sees that the reasons why Shinzo Abe decided to join the agreement are as follow: (1) Trans-Pacific Partnership could be a tool to strengthen Japan-U.S. relations –Jap an still needs U.S.‟s sup port to be the supe rpower in Ea st Asia; (2) Japan needed to take advantage of this last window of opportunity to enter the negotiations, and; (3) A feeling that Japan is being left behind in negotiating FTAs. However Shinzo Abe‟s decision to pa rtic ipa te in the neg otiation s was risky, since the majority of Japanese has been rejected Trans-Pacific Partnership from the beginning. The main reason of this rejection was because Japanese afraid Trans -Pacific Partnership would harm their agriculture sector. This agreement demands trade liberalization amongst its member-states, and it would be risky for Japan to totally liberalize their agriculture sector. Abe took strategic actions to calm its citizen by implementing two-level games policy. Abe has plays two level games strategy to solve this situation. Abe has been talking with the other Trans-Pac ific Partnership‟s mem bers abo ut Jap an‟s c ond ition, an d ha s been trying to soften in tern ationa l‟s dema nd. A be h as finally ac hieved a level o f u ndersta nding from the U.S. side in Febru ary, with O bam a‟s sta temen t that stated ta riff exceptio ns w ere possible under the Trans-Pacific Agreement. In the domestic level, Abe has also promised Japanese that Japan will protect domestic interest in the negotiations. Abe promised to protect five agriculture commodities from tariff abolitions. Furthermore, Abe offered side payments to domestic agricultural producers (this strategy has also known as countermeasures strategy) in order to mitigate the impact of trade liberalization. As a result o f Abe‟s strate gies, the app rova l rate of Japa nese to him is p retty high: 71%. This is indeed a phenomena.

Kata Kunci : Trans-Pacific Partnership, Shinzo Abe, two-level games, domestic demand, agriculture.