TPP - SingaporeFeb2014

SINGAPORE -- Australian sugar producers have enlisted the help of sugar industries in Canada and New Zealand to bolster their demands for the United States to provide additional market access for sugar in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In a Feb. 20 joint statement distributed to negotiators here, the three sugar industries -- calling themselves the "Tri-Nations Sugar Group" -- urged TPP countries to eliminate tariffs on sugar and other agricultural products within a short implementation period and agree to rules...

Eighteen senators late last week urged U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in a letter to ensure that Japan significantly opens its agriculture market in a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, given the potential future growth of U.S. agriculture exports there. The Feb. 21 letter, touted by U.S. agriculture producers, is part of a major effort by U.S. business and agriculture groups to drive home the point that Japan and Canada must open their agriculture markets through the TPP negotiations. "[W]e...

More than half of the House Democratic caucus urged U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman ahead of this week's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial to refrain from retreating on U.S. demands for a strong environment chapter in TPP, even as they acknowledged that the United States finds itself alone on this front. The U.S. has demanded that the TPP environment chapter be subject to full dispute settlement, and that parties be bound by the TPP deal to the commitments they have made...

SINGAPORE -- Ministers from Japan and Australia pressed forward here on a bilateral trade agreement ahead of an April summit of their leaders that could be a prime opportunity to announce an initial deal, in a move observers speculated may be aimed at putting pressure on Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries to complete their own negotiations. If Japan and Australia can strike a deal that provides additional access to the Japanese market for Australian beef and dairy producers, that could put...

SINGAPORE -- Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministers during a four-day meeting here made progress on rules issues such as state-owned enterprises (SOEs), telecommunications, and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told a small group of reporters here after the end of the meeting on Feb. 25. In a subsequent Feb. 25 teleconference, Froman also cited services and investment as examples of areas where "significant progress" had been made. Froman said during the call that the outstanding issues...

SINGAPORE -- Mexico is taking a tough line in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks over a short-supply list of textile inputs that could be sourced from outside the region for use in qualifying apparel, arguing that several proposed inputs should be listed on a temporary rather than permanent basis, according to informed sources. Mexico has identified roughly 70 items on the proposed list that it initially wanted to remove because it believes they are produced in Mexico, according to an...

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman this week put out the public message that he is not seriously considering dropping Japan from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations when he said that "all" participants in are now focused on getting a far-reaching deal done with all 12 nations now at the table. Froman made this comment in a Feb. 25 teleconference from Singapore in response to a question on whether the U.S. is considering concluding the TPP negotiations without Japan in light...

SINGAPORE -- Ahead of a Feb. 22-25 meeting of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministers here, the Malaysian government publicly laid out its objections on seven key areas in the negotiations, and revealed that 21 out of 29 chapters have outstanding issues. The problem areas flagged by Malaysia include intellectual property (IP), particularly on pharmaceutical IP protection; state-owned enterprises (SOEs), where Malaysia says TPP countries are still in the preliminary stage of discussing a definition; and investment, where it is seeking carveouts...

SINGAPORE -- As the United States and Japan are locked in closed-door negotiations in part aimed at opening up Japan's agriculture market under a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, the products likely to be the biggest sticking points are beef, pork and dairy, according to observers here. These are among the five sensitive product categories that the Japanese government has been trying to protect from full liberalization in TPP, in line with resolutions passed last year by the ruling Liberal Democratic...

SINGAPORE -- President Obama indicated at the North American Leaders' Summit last week that his administration is pushing to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in hopes that progress in the talks will create momentum for Congress to renew Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as fast track, according to Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo. "President Obama was very straightforward, making sure that we get the idea that he believes the political momentum will be there to get the TPA...