Washington talks reveal wide TPP gaps

WASHINGTON—A four-day meeting in the U.S. capital of top negotiators from countries participating in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks highlighted how difficult it is for the participants to close gaps in contentious areas.

The talks, which ended Saturday, were meant to pave the way for meetings of leaders and ministers from the TPP negotiating countries set for Indonesia next month. However, the results of the meeting here suggest the outcome of the talks for the multinational framework has become even more unpredictable ahead of the negotiation’s targeted year-end conclusion.

The top negotiators held intensive discussions from the first day of the meeting, completing talks on some fields in about 30 minutes.

In the beginning, they focused on less thorny issues but then found themselves behind schedule during the latter half of the talks, making it impossible to complete discussions on some of the agenda as scheduled.

Among the contentious areas is intellectual property, about which there remain deep differences between the United States, which aims to strengthen patent and other rights, and emerging countries, which want to obtain advanced technologies at lower costs.

Some negotiators suggested participants should urge their countries’ leaders and ministers to make political decisions so negotiators can focus on fields they are certain to reach agreements on, as long as the top priority remains concluding the TPP talks by year-end.

Officials from the negotiating countries have been discussing the wording of a statement to be issued at the October summit meeting. A draft made in August was upbeat, saying a substantive agreement was reached at the meeting, according to sources.

In contrast, another draft proposed recently said only that the meeting would become a “milestone” in the TPP talks.

Therefore, it has become uncertain how much progress the summit and ministerial meeting in October can make.

U.S. losing patience

On Thursday, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, the U.S. government’s top official in charge of the TPP talks, showed up at one of the rooms where the talks were being held. He said it was time for the participating countries to wrap up discussions as they had already been negotiating for a long time.

Froman’s remarks reflected the U.S. government’s desire to quickly conclude the TPP talks amid its frustration that they have lasted more than three years.

U.S. politics center on federal elections held every two years. Presidential elections are held once every four years together with congressional elections, and midterm elections are held every four years. All the members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are elected in the congressional elections. The next midterm election will be held next year.

The ruling Democrats have been most concerned about improving the country’s employment situation, which directly affects the current administration’s public approval ratings.

In a speech Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama stressed that his government will accelerate efforts to conclude the TPP talks as the multinational framework is expected to boost U.S. exports.

“For every billion dollars that we sell, that’s 5,000 new jobs right here in the United States,” he said.

However, the more the U.S. government pushes for a speedy conclusion to the TPP negotiations, the more likely emerging economies will try to take advantage of the stance, as they disagree with United States on many issues. Emerging countries might employ a strategy of seeking to postpone a conclusion, forcing the United States to compromise.

The U.S. business community has become concerned that the Obama administration could rush to a conclusion without substance with an eye to the midterm election. During the TPP meeting, the negotiators received letters from associations of U.S. export-related companies and other fields, urging them to reach substantive agreements.

As industrialized developed countries, Japan and the United States have some common goals in the TPP talks, but at the same time Japan is under pressure to open its market further. It remains to be seen how clever Japan can be in negotiating with the United States and in understanding the U.S. situation, so it can achieve an advantageous outcome.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun