I wrote yesterday how interests within the US and globally – from trade experts to Congress – appear to have soured on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – the proposed regional trade deal between 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia.
Of particular concern is the secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding negotiations, whereby powerful US pharmaceutical and digital interests have been party to deliberations but other stakeholders, including Congress, have been kept in the dark.
Now it appears that Senate Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, might have killed-off hopes of the TPP being concluded this year, with Reid signalling that he will block the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would have given President Obama the authority to negotiate the TPP and then bring it back to Congress for an up or down vote, with no amendments allowed. From the AFR:
Reid has one goal in mind: to retain his job as Senate majority leader in the November midterm elections. The hardscrabble Democrat from Searchlight, Nevada, has never met a trade deal he liked. Nor, more important, does he think the voters like them much either…
Passing TPA is just the kind of thing that would alienate the trade unions, whose financial support Reid needs for the six or seven states that will decide the Senate…
The senator is not the kind of man whose arm can be twisted easily – even by a president from his own party…
If Mr Reid does not want TPA to pass, it will go nowhere…
If Mr Obama cannot persuade his own party in Congress to support the talks, then China’s neighbours will take their cue. They are already riddled with doubts about Washington’s readiness to take on its own vested interests – textiles and sugar among them.
So while Australia’s Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, has signaled Australia’s unbridled support for the TPP provided Australia gains significant access to agricultural markets – labeling the agreement as a “platform for 21st-century trade rules” – it appears that protectionist interests within the US, in particular the textile, apparel, dairy and sugar industries, might yet scuttle the deal.
This is good news for Australia, in light of the risks posed to Australia’s sovereignty and consumer welfare arising from the TPP.
