TPP - Dallas2012

The 12th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement wrapped up last week in Dallas with reports of progress, but also clear indications that the talks are unlikely to conclude this year and that trade ministers of TPP countries will do little more than take stock when they meet next month under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Kazan, Russia. Ministers meeting in Kazan are also unlikely to address the issue of when...

DALLAS — U.S. agriculture and food producers for the first time have publicly detailed their recommendations for how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) chapter on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures should go beyond World Trade Organization rules. Nineteen industry groups distributed their two-page position paper to TPP negotiators at a May 12 stakeholder event here, in advance of negotiations on SPS that kicked off on May 15. The paper lays out eight ways in which the TPP chapter on SPS should...

DALLAS — Negotiations here last week on the labor chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement yielded some progress in that several countries, including Vietnam, appear more open to discussing the scope of labor obligations as proposed by the United States, although Vietnam and Brunei remain cool to making those obligations subject to binding dispute settlement, according to informed sources. Therefore, the issue of whether these labor commitments subject to enforceability under the regular TPP dispute settlement provisions will likely...

DALLAS — A U.S. proposal meant to ensure the free flow of data across borders of countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is facing questions from New Zealand and Australia during this round of negotiations on whether it could conflict with their privacy laws, according to informed sources. A senior U.S. negotiator said there is general agreement on the importance of addressing barriers in data flow among TPP participants, but that “there are a number of issues that emerge when...

DALLAS — In an apparent effort to break the deadlock in negotiations for an intellectual property rights (IPR) chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), several countries are proposing that certain provisions in the U.S. proposal be replaced with language from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), informed sources said. According to these sources, other ACTA signatories involved in the TPP — New Zealand, Australia and Singapore — want to substitute language from the agreement’s criminal offenses section with the proposed U.S...

DALLAS — The United States has proposed that participants in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks delay seeking commitments to further open up their government procurement markets at the sub-federal level and instead focus exclusively on central government procurement, which a U.S. trade official signaled is a new approach for the U.S. in trade negotiations. “This is a complex negotiation and we are delaying seeking sub-federal commitments at this time to focus on federal-level commitments,” the official said. “This is an...

DALLAS – A senior U.S. trade negotiator yesterday (May 13) held open the possibility that trade ministers from countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks may consider the potential participation of Canada, Mexico and Japan when they meet next month in Russia under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Once all TPP countries have completed their bilateral discussions with Canada, Mexico and Japan, there will be an opportunity for the TPP ministers to “get together” to make...

DALLAS — A group of U.S., Australian and New Zealand food and commodity organizations released joint recommendations here for limiting the protection of products with geographic names in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations that exceeds the U.S. negotiating proposal tabled last year in at least one key aspect. They demand that geographical indications (GIs) protected by a TPP member in a trade agreement with a third party, such as the European Union, be limited to compound terms that include the...