The United States and 11 other countries in the Asia Pacific region are expected to tackle the most difficult outstanding issues for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and substantially conclude the controversial trade talks this week, a leading U.S. trade expert said. The TPP talks involve Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. “I think the TPP ministers are going to Hawaii with the hope that they can finish or substantially complete the negotiations,” Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), told Xinhua in an interview, referring to the upcoming TPP trade ministers’ meetings set to kick off here Tuesday. Talks on the TPP had been stuck for months as other participating countries were reluctant to make major concessions needed to close a deal before the U.S. Congress granted the trade promotion authority, also known as the fast-track authority, to President Barack Obama. That trade authority would allow the U.S. president to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendments, which is crucial for the swift congressional consideration of a TPP deal. With the fast track authority in hands by the end of last month following weeks of tough fight in Congress, the Obama administration is stepping up efforts to push for an early conclusion of the Asia-Pacific trade pact. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said earlier this month that he hoped to finalize the TPP trade deal “in the near term” and send it to Congress for ratification before the end of this year. The TPP, covering about 40 percent of global economy and believed to be the biggest trade agreement in the world in the past two decades, is central to the Obama administration’s policy of advancing economic engagement in Asia and writing the rules for international trade in the 21st century. One of the highlights of the upcoming four-day trade ministers’ meetings is whether the United States and Japan, the two biggest players in the TPP, could complete their bilateral market access negotiations of agriculture and autos, which had stalled overall TPP trade talks. One of the sticking points remaining to be resolved in U.S.- Japan bilateral talks is the U.S. demand for an increased access to Japan’s rice market. “The expectations is that the Japan will agree to increase the import of rice, perhaps under tariff-free quotas,” said Schott, noting that “both sides expect a deal to come together very soon.” But Canada’s reluctance to come forward with an offer on the market access of dairy and poultry products might frustrate other TPP nations and drag down the overall talks. A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers have warned that it would be hard for them to support Canada’s inclusion in a final TPP deal if Ottawa would not significantly open its market to more dairy imports.
