Trade ministers from 12 Pacific countries negotiating agreement in Hawaii

During the four-day conference, participants will focus on the making of common rules and finalizing the round-robin bilateral talks to abolish tariffs on a broad basis. This multilateral format delivered huge benefits in the postwar era, with global trade growing twice as fast as GDP.

“That is exactly what we are trying to negotiate”, he told reporters on his way into the meeting.

The downside, on which opposition parties nearly exclusively focus, is that the dairy industry isn’t going to get a good deal out of the TPP and Pharmac is going to have to pay more for the drugs it buys on the government’s behalf. The seven other participating countries do not place tariffs on Japanese vehicle imports.

“Expansion of Australia’s meat output will be largely due to its increased exports of bovine meat to Japan, the US and Canada“, the report said. “I advocated for a multi-national trade agreement that would ‘be the gold standard.’ But that was the responsibility of the United States trade representative”. To this, Japan has not complied.

Australian trade minister Andrew Robb said the TPP countries were taking “very tiny steps” to resolve critical disputes over dairy markets.

As negotiators struggled to complete the largest regional trade agreement, they pointed to the environmental accord as a clear achievement.

The United States and Japan had largely agreed on the rules, but had to get buy-in from Canada and Mexico, which are closely tied in to the U.S. auto industry. In this respect, the two sides have not been able to reach a compromise on whether high-priced major parts, such as engines and gearboxes, should be included.

Positive words notwithstanding, regarding the talks as the “final” round is risky given the unsettled issues, said Timothy Brightbill, a partner at law firm Wiley Rein in Washington. The deal’s negotiators are working to iron out the deal that would have to go before Congress for approval.

The move falls short of calls by US automakers such as Ford Motor Co and some US lawmakers to include sanctions against currency manipulation in the trade deal.

However, the significance of the free trade deal is diminished by the fact that many countries in the TPP framework have already had bilateral FTA arrangements with each other and the United States and Japan account for about 80 percent of the trade conducted within the potential trade bloc.

But New Zealand has come up against still resistance from Canada in particular, which has a highly protected domestic dairy sector.

The case they stake out in the letter is to the point, spelling out opponents of liberalising market access for New Zealand products will “point to New Zealand being the largest exporter of dairy products” – but the reality is that New Zealand produces less than 3 per cent of global supply.

Henry Bremer, president of the Kamloops Okanagan Dairy Association, says he thinks all dairy farmers are concerned about possible repercussions from the TPP.

Participants at a crucial meeting in Hawaii are becoming less confident that trade ministers will strike a conclusive deal by Friday’s deadline because of differences over market access for agriculture, according to trade professionals in Maui close to the talks.