Abe vows not to concede ground on TPP talks ahead of U.S. trip

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that Japan won’t make any easy concessions just to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks before he meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on April 28.

The TPP negotiations are “in the final phase, but problems remain,” Abe said during a session of the Upper House Budget Committee. “It is impossible to make unnecessary concessions in line with my trip to the United States.”

Abe is setting out April 26 for an eight-day official visit to the U.S.

The 12 countries involved in the TPP want to reach an agreement by the end of this spring, but the outlook remains uncertain due in part to remaining differences between Japan and the United States, the two largest economies in the framework.

The negotiations are also being dragged down by the prolonged debate among U.S. lawmakers on a bill that would grant Obama fast-track authority to sign trade deals.

On Thursday, however, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed confidence that an agreement on the TPP would be concluded soon.

“We do feel that we can close this out in a very small number of months,” Froman said at an event in Washington.

The 10 other TPP negotiating countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, a purported negotiation text released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks showed that some of the 12 countries demanded exemptions from a proposed litigation rule involving companies and governments.

It is unknown, however, whether such demands are currently on the negotiating table for the TPP, as the text was dated Jan. 20 and chief TPP negotiators have held talks twice since then. WikiLeaks published the text on Wednesday.

The rule in question concerns investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses, which give a multinational company the right to sue a government for compensation if it believes its investment has been harmed by a government decision based on laws and rules.

People familiar with recent development of the trade talks said TPP negotiators are considering making exceptions to the rule by having laws and rules not subject to lawsuits aimed at settling disputes between investor and state if the laws and rules are judged to have been established for the public interest.

According to the document made public by WikiLeaks, countries such as Australia, Canada and Malaysia said the ISDS clauses should not apply to them in legal disputes with foreign companies in some business fields.

Influential U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also has a critical stance toward the clauses.

Source: Kyodo news