US trade rep: Pacific ministers make headway in Hawaii talks

U.S. experts say that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal involving 12 countries in the Asia Pacific region would be “a failed agreement” without China’s participation.

But both U.S. and Japanese officials say the two sides have significantly narrowed gaps since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Washington earlier this year and are in striking distance of closing a bilateral deal.

Critics have complained that the deal is being negotiated in secret and that it favors multinational corporations over workers and consumers.

When completed, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be composed of more than 100,000 tariff lines, cover economies with 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, and include more than 20 different chapters addressing issues such as labor conditions, wildlife trafficking and human rights as well as trade.

Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) is the only mill still in operation, producing 200,000 tons from 36,000 acres on the island of Maui, where trade ministers gathered this week to thrash out a deal on the TPP.

Only the beleaguered negotiators and most of the 600 official U.S. trade advisors representing corporate interests wanted this deal, which recent polling shows is unpopular in most of the countries involved.

“We will also need to closely review the still-classified text to assess the extent to which there has been real and sufficient progress on issues such as the environment and investor-state dispute settlement”, he said.

Negotiators would return to their home countries instead of continuing discussions in Hawaii.

“The sad thing is, 98 percent is completed”, said Andrew Robb, Australia’s trade minister.

With the US facing elections in November 2016, and voters suspicious of trade treaties, the delay could jeopardize its ratification in Congress.

Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said in March that the country is open to all the free trade arrangements that are beneficial to the world’s trade liberalization and regional economic integration, as long as they are open and transparent.

It would also clarify and standardize trade rules, making it easier for companies to sell goods and services in the Pacific Rim.

Almost everyone who was asked about the talks said the dairy issue was clouding the gathering and limiting progress in other sensitive areas. The U.S. has waited for Canada before offering its own concessions to Australia and New Zealand, a move that would lend credibility to pressure on Japan to also ease dairy imports.

Mr. Froman’s team is working hard to finish a deal that would attract broad support without alienating too many U.S. lawmakers, already deeply divided over Mr. Obama’s trade policy.

Australia’s delegation insisted pharmaceutical-market protections beyond five years would never get through Parliament, and the U.S. team was demanding 12.

Clinton said this is because she didn’t work with the president on those projects.