Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, also known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement or TPP agreement is a multilateral free trade agreement that aims to integrate the economies of the Asia-Pacific region. The original agreement between the countries of Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore was signed on June 3, 2005, and entered into force on May 28, 2006. Five additional countries, including Australia, Malaysia, Peru, United States, and Vietnam, are currently negotiating to join the group. On the last day of the APEC summit on November 14, 2010, leaders of the nine current negotiating countries endorsed the proposal advanced by President Obama that set a target for settlement of negotiations by the next APEC summit in 2011.

The TPP was previously known as the Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership (P3-CEP), its negotiations launched on the sidelines of the 2002 APEC Leaders' Meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and Prime Ministers Goh Chok Tong of Singapore and Helen Clark of New Zealand. Brunei first took part as a full negotiating party in the fifth round of talks in April 2005, after which the trade bloc became known as the Pacific-4 (P4).

Although all original and negotiating parties are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the TPP is not an APEC initiative. However, it is considered as a pathfinder for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), an APEC initiative. TPP negotiations have occurred on the sidelines of APEC summits since 2002.

The objective of the original agreement was to eliminate 90 percent of all tariffs between member countries by January 1, 2006, and reduce all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015. It is a comprehensive agreement covering all the main pillars of a free trade agreement, including trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy.

Membership

  Current P-4 countries

  Negotiating countries

The negotiations initially included just three countries (Chile, New Zealand and Singapore), but Brunei subsequently joined the agreement. The original TPP agreement contains an accession clause and affirms the members' "commitment to encourage the accession to this Agreement by other economies."

In February 2008 the United States agreed to enter into talks with the P4 members regarding liberalization of trade in financial services. Then, on September 22, 2008, U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab announced that the United States would begin negotiations with the P4 countries to join the TPP, with the first round of talks scheduled for early 2009. Commenting on the announcement, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated, "I think the value to New Zealand of the United States coming into a transpacific agreement as a partner would be of the same value as we would hope to get from a bilateral FTA. . . It's very, very big news."

In November 2008, Australia, Vietnam, and Peru announced that they would also be joining the P4 trade bloc. In October 2010, Malaysia announced that it had also joined the TPP negotiations. Canada, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan have also expressed interest in TPP membership.

After the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009, the anticipated March 2009 negotiations were postponed. However, in his first trip to Asia in November 2009, President Obama reaffirmed the United States' commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and on December 14, 2009, new U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk notified Congress that President Obama planned to enter TPP negotiations "with the objective of shaping a high-standard, broad-based regional pact".

Since that time, three rounds of TPP negotiations have been held. The first round took place March 15-19, 2010, in Melbourne, Australia, the second round occurred in San Francisco June 14-18, 2010, and a third round took place October 5-8, 2010, in Brunei. Japan joined as an observer in the TPP negotiations that took place November 13–14, 2010, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Yokohama, Japan.

Relations with potential members

Canada is an observer in the TPP talks but has not committed to join, purportedly because the United States and New Zealand have specifically blocked it, supposedly due to concerns over Canadian agricultural policy, specifically on dairy. Several pro-business and internationalist Canadian media outlets have raised concerns about this as a missed opportunity. In a feature in the Financial Post former Canadian trade negotiator Peter Clark claimed that the Harper government had been strategically out maneuvered by the Obama administration, Wendy Dobson and Diana Kuzmanovic for The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary argued for the economic necessity of the TPP for Canada. Embassy warned that Canada's position in APEC could be compromised by being excluded from both the US-oriented TPP and the proposed China-oriented ASEAN +3 trade agreement.

Japan is regarded as a potential future member but it would have to open its agricultural market in a way it refused to do in previous trade negotiations such as the Doha round. It joined TPP talks in November 2010 and became an observer.

External links

• Text of Original Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement
• United States - New Zealand Council - TPP Resources
• Letters from Ambassador Kirk announcing President Obama's intention to enter into TPP negotiations
• Office of the United States Trade Representative TPP Website
• New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade TPP Website
• Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry Overview of Trans-Pacific SEP