12 nations sign historic TPP deal amid protest

The deal is aimed at facilitating investment and eliminating almost all tariffs among states across the Pacific Rim.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, has signed one of the biggest trade deals with its 12-member nations in Auckland, New Zealand on Thursday.

In the USA, the agreement has been at the center of President Barack Obama’s trade agenda, but while it is supported by business groups and many Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet backed it and has suggested Congress shouldn’t vote to ratify it until after the November elections.

China said on Friday that world trade rules in the 21st century should not be written by a single country, in response to U.S. President Obama’s remarks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP will now undergo a two-year ratification period in which at least six countries – that account for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic production of the 12 TPP nations – must approve the final text for the deal to be implemented.

Portman is seeking a second term in an industrial state where many workers blame job losses on previous trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and US Trade Representative Mike Froman led the ceremonial signing at Auckland’s Sky City Convention Center, protesters blocked roads outside.

“We are delighted that the TPP has been signed, the culmination of several years of intensive effort by trade negotiators”. “In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak”, he recently wrote in The Guardian newspaper. Sean Miner on the signing of the Trans-Pacific PartnershipCCTV America’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Sean Miner, the China program manager and research associate at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“The TPP marks the first time that New Zealand and the U.S. have entered into an FTA relationship”. This includes Singapore, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia and Mexico.

“Members of Congress will see the benefits for their constituents”, he said, adding that the benefits have been estimated to be over 130 billion dollars a year in GDP growth and more than 350 billion dollars of additional exports”.

In Japan, the resignation of Economics Minister Akira Amari – Japan’s main TPP negotiator – may make it more hard to sell the deal in Japan.