With Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, intent on signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, and selling-out Australians to US big pharmaceutical and digital companies, it seemed that all hopes were lost of there being satisfactory outcome.
However, last week, some hope was restored with the US Senate initially voting down the Bill that would have granted President Barack Obama so-called “Fast Track Authority”, allowing the President to negotiate an agreement and have Congress pass it without amendment.
The vote on Fast Track negotiating authority initially failed with 45 senators voting against it versus 52 in favor, which was below the required 60 out of 100 votes required for the Bill to pass.
In the wake of the Bill’s demise in the Senate, White House officials labeled the failed vote as a “procedural snafu”. And the Senate is now set to again vote on the Bill this week, with insiders tipping that the Bill will pass.
Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is also optimistic that Fast Track will be approved, claiming on Sunday that the Republicans have the numbers in both houses and that “we’ll pass it later this week”.
The prospect of presidential Fast Track Authority being granted this week has gotten Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb excited, paving the way for the TPP to be concluded within the following fortnight:
“Overnight, the Republicans have become increasingly bullish about it passing the Senate quickly, where the real difficulties are with the Democrats, and then through to the House before the end of the week”, [Andrew Robb] said.
…if that was true, “it would pave the way to possibly conclude negotiations by all 12 countries in the following fortnight”…
“I think there’d be one window in June [to pass TPA] from what I understand,” Mr Robb said.
“But every month that goes by, the more the chance is of this issue becoming even more politicised in the United States as they head towards the next presidential election.
“So it really is a matter of the domestic politics in the United States. Once they’ve given this bill, that will give confidence to the other 11 countries that we can reach a conclusion and have this thing dealt with properly within the United States.”
With Australia all in for the TPP, hopes of the deal failing rests entirely with the US political system. Here’s hoping that the Democrats can garner enough opposition to prevent Fast Track Authority passing through Congress, delaying any deal until the next president takes office.
Otherwise, Australia’s health system and taxpayers will be the big loser.
