Obama may rush through TPP

Eight years in the making, the giant Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal between Australia, the United States and 10 other regional powers is as good as dead after the Obama administration walked away from its plan to put it before the “lame duck” Congress ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.

Trump ran on an anti-free trade agenda that included a vow to block the TPP, which would create a 12-nation free trade area of Pacific Rim countries, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the global economy.

The Obama administration is largely suspending efforts to pass a sweeping Pacific trade deal meant to bind the USA and Asia after congressional Republicans said they would not advance it in the election’s aftermath.

Rather, it will leave it up to the incoming president, Donald Trump-who opposed the agreement during his campaign. All 12 negotiating parties had concluded a TPP agreement in October of 2015 but each country was required to ratify the deal afterward.

White House officials have admitted they do not believe the controversial free trade deal with 11 other Pacific nations will pass through Congress before the formal transition of power on 20 January.

As for the TPP, though it was signed by U.S. President Barack Obama, it must still be ratified by Congress, something that not yet happened and which makes withdrawal easier. “I think it’d be best to have an Asia-Pacific deal that includes China, and includes Russian Federation as well”.

New Zealand will be pushing new trade opportunities now the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is unlikely to proceed, an worldwide relations expert says.

Within the first 100 days, his administration will drop out of the TPP and in the 100 days after that could withdraw from the North American Free-Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, unless certain demands were met, according to the policy road map.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan said they would not take up the TPP before Mr Trump’s inauguration.

“I think the TPP is dead, and there will be blood all over the floor if somebody tries to move that through the Congress anytime soon”, Trump confidante Sen. Perhaps in response to the news that the TPP still has a shred of hope of being passed in the U.S., on Thursday Japan’s lower house in parliament voted to ratify the deal. Analysts say the demise of the TPP could clear the way for China’s similar trade pact called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. “It’d have to be a new negotiation”.

According to White House Deputy National Security Advisor Wally Adeyemo, Obama is expected to stress that the U.S. would remain engaged in Asia regardless of the trade deal.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit a number of TPP signatories during his conference trip, pushing its own deals, Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong said yesterday.