Talks for Pacific Trade Deal Stumble By JONATHAN WEISMAN JULY 31, 2015; LAHAINA, Hawaii — Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations failed to reach final agreement on Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever deadlocking over protections for drug companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific....Vietnam, Malaysia and New Zealand were willing to make significant concessions to gain access to United States markets.... ...Canada would not budge on opening its poultry and dairy markets. Chile... saw no reason to compromise, especially on its demand for a short window of protection for United States pharmaceutical giants. Australia’s delegation insisted that pharmaceutical market protections beyond five years would never get through Parliament... Mexico’s secretary of economy, was defiant on the hard line he took against the export of Japanese cars with any less than 65 percent of their parts from T.P.P. countries....The bright spot might have been the environmental negotiations... cover illegal wildlife trafficking, forestry management, overfishing and marine protection, and it could prove to be a landmark, setting a new floor for all future multilateral accords....Environmentally destructive subsidies, such as cheap fuel to power illegal fishing vessels and governmental assistance for boat making in overfished waters, are banned....Failure to comply ... potentially culminating in trade sanctions. United States negotiators hope that just the threat of economic sanctions will bolster relatively weak environmental ministries in countries like Peru, Malaysia and Vietnam....The impact of the Pacific accord’s environmental chapter could be broad, both for the nations in the deal and those outside. The 12 participating countries account for more than a quarter of the global seafood trade and about a quarter of the world’s timber and pulp production. Five of the countries rank among the world’s most biologically diverse countries.... Some, like Vietnam and Malaysia, have long been on the watch list for illegal wildlife trafficking...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/business/tpp-trade-talks-us-pacific-nations.html?_r=1
Other links:
- In TPP talks, Barack Obama loses battle against traditional trade powers Date August 1, 2015 - 9:01PM The TPP was about setting rules for an evolving information economy where value lies in "data" more than "goods".... ... And above all it was about injecting balance into Barack Obama's "rebalancing" to Asia, so the US President could reassure partners and allies that he had an economic and diplomatic agenda to match his military one. "If we don't write the rules, China will write the rules out in that region," said Obama, "We will be shut out." The TPP was so important that even the US Defence Secretary stretched the limits of his portfolio to make the case. "Passing TPP is as important to me as another aircraft carrier," said Ashton Carter. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-tpp-talks-barack-obama-loses-battle-against-traditional-trade-powers-20150801-gipdz0.html#ixzz3hd66FglP
- http://www.newsweek.com/trans-pacific-partnership-trade-united-states-china-nafta-324630
- http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/sovereignty-for-international-investors-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp.html
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