to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US:
1. Lower our costs (lower wages, deregulation, etc.)
2. Increase the costs of manufacturing in countries like China
China and other (mostly Asian) countries were able to gain manufacturing jobs due to lower costs. That was from low wages, ignoring patents and copyrights, no employee benefits, no unions, few if any worker protection laws in their countries, no regulation, lower energy costs (due to coal), currency manipulation and in the case of China a government willing to support industries (for example: China's solar panel manufacturing industry).
The US couldn't force China to adopt business policies that were consistent with US/European industry due to the size of their economy, so instead Obama tried to get enough countries to agree to the conditions so that China would be cut out of enough markets they would eventually agree. (China has gone on record as saying they wanted to join TPP but couldn't qualify right now).
China, Russia and other countries also used American imports as negotiating tools in trying to get the US to change it's policies (usually political). I remember reading an article a year or two ago about China holding up tons of fish imported from Washington/Oregon by claiming that they didn't meet some requirement. Of course they did, it was China's way of getting some concession on something they wanted from the gov't. It was going to put a lot of smaller fishermen out of business, but there was little anyone could do. The TPP also addresses that by bypassing these governments and allowing business tribunals (or whatever you want to call them) to act as "judges" in these cases. Yes, some rights are given up, but we always see legal recourse from our perspective and fail to recognize that there is often no legal recourse in these other countries.
The TPP offers protections for union organizing, wages, environmental impact, discrimination and for copyright & patentsc etc. The hope is that workers in these other countries will now unionize and bring their own wages up (improving their lives) as well as making the US more competitive. It also has reduced tariffs in other countries. I know Japan had to give up tariffs it had on US auto imports (they're being phased out over five years, I think).
I"m not worried about Obama's legacy. I'm worried about people who try to misrepresent it.
The TPP is am imperfect solution to a significant problem facing US industry and our labor force.
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