As President Obama leaves on his Asia tour today to try to paper over the deep divisions that have bewitched the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, he will likely refrain from reiterating the criticisms his administration recently levied against the sensitive domestic policies of the TPP governments he will be visiting.

The 2014 National Trade Estimate Report, published earlier this month by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), targets financial, privacy, health, and other public interest policies of each TPP nation as "trade barriers" that the U.S. government seeks to eliminate. The report offers unusual insight into why negotiations over the sweeping, 12-nation deal are contentious and have repeatedly missed deadlines for completion.

The policies of other TPP nations criticized by the 384-page USTR report include New Zealand’s popular health programs to control medicine costs, an Australian law to prevent the offshoring of consumers’ private health data, Japan’s pricing system that reduces the cost of medical devices, Vietnam’s post-crisis regulations requiring banks to hold adequate capital, Peru’s policies favoring generic versions of expensive biologic medicines, Canada’s patent standards requiring that a medicine’s utility should be demonstrated to obtain monopoly patent rights, and Mexico’s “sugary beverage tax” and “junk food tax.”

The Obama administration also targets seven of the 11 TPP partners, including majority-Muslim countries like Malaysia and Brunei, for restricting the importation or sale of alcohol, takes issue with several TPP countries’ restrictions on the importation of tobacco, and laments Vietnam’s restriction on the importation of “a variety of hazardous waste items.”

The Obama administration report calls for some TPP nations to adopt copyright enforcement measures akin to those proposed under the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was defeated in the U.S. Congress. For example, the report notes that the Obama administration “has also urged Chile … to amend its Internet service provider liability regime to permit effective action against any act of infringement of copyright and related rights.” The report also criticizes data privacy policies, describing Canadian privacy rules as too “restrictive” and Japan’s Privacy Act as “unnecessarily burdensome.”

The report attacks six TPP nations’ rules requiring foreign takeovers of major domestic firms, including banks, to be vetted by the government. Also listed as “investment barriers” are Malaysia and New Zealand’s requirements that foreign investors obtain permission before acquiring land, and Peru and Mexico’s prohibitions on foreign acquisition of land along their national borders.

The report also critiques government procurement rules in several TPP nations that are similar to the U.S. Buy American policy in giving preference to domestic producers. This includes Malaysia’s bumiputera policies, preferences for domestically produced medicines in Vietnam’s hospitals and Japan’s preferences for local companies when contracting major taxpayer-funded construction projects.

The USTR report further accuses some TPP governments of broad corruption or even incompetence. For example, the report states that two of Peru’s three federal branches of government lack the “impartiality” or “expertise” required to fulfill their responsibilities.

Here are some of the domestic policies in Malaysia and Japan -- the two TPP nations that Obama will soon be visiting -- that the report singles out for criticism: