TPP a trade and human rights facilitator: Obama

“I had a fruit plate today at the hotel where I’m staying that was one of the best meals that I have ever eaten”, he said.

“We can diversify exports to nontraditional markets”, he said.

Obama said TPP is the first free trade agreement that levels playing field between private companies and state-owned firms. He said the benefits go beyond trade to “include important strategic and geopolitical benefits”.

“Our focus right now is getting it ratified and implemented by the 12”, he said.

“Over many decades, the United States helped fashion the worldwide institutions and global trading system that have stitched our economies together and helped prevent another war between major powers”.

If the broad agreements reached in the TPP negotiations, such as the abolition of tariffs and the application of fair and transparent trade rules, spread to nations outside the TPP, it will certainly invigorate the economic activities in the region.

Acknowledging that the debates on TPP in many countries and skepticism on previously failed trade deals, Obama admitted that TPP deal is a “tough sell”.

Before he left the USA on his 10-day worldwide trip, the president at several public events promoted the TPP’s potential benefits for small businesses and used a bipartisan collection of foreign policy experts to reinforce his contention that the deal holds national security as well as economic ramifications.

The Association of Indonesian Traditional Market Traders (APPSI) expressed concern that the participation in the TPP would affect their business.

The Obama administration is counting on agribusiness interests to deliver a substantial number of votes in Congress for the agreement, which lawmakers are expected to take up next year. “I believe it’s a good deal and we’ll get it done, but there’s no guarantee”.

He added that the TPP would also bring about positive changes relating to economic competition, advancing human rights and universal values, stronger environmental laws and enhance labour laws. The TPP has to be adopted.

Obama said TPP is a win for the kind of trade that companies and workers in member countries need to compete in the 21st century.

“This agreement has obviously been negotiated over a long period of time, and I think all parties realise that they have struck a balanced agreement on the thousand pages that TPP is”, he said.

“We were very specific in the chapter to say that we have to protect generics for low- income persons”, he said.

“Well, part of our job is to promote the U.S. drug industry but part of our job is also to be good partners with countries that have people who are sick”.

Vilsack didn’t directly call for other nations to join the trade pact, but suggested that if they wanted to, there was no reason to exclude them.