The Standard - Breaking NewsToday, 5:09 PM
The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal between the US and 11 other Pacific nations is drawing potential new members from Asia and criticism from those excluded, as it heads for a tough ride in the US Congress.
Leaders of the trade grouping (some of who are pictured with US President Obama) that spans the Pacific Rim met alongside a regional economic summit in the Philippines and US President Barack Obama urged them to ratify the deal “as quickly as possible.''
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Manila, said he was expecting an invitation to the join the pact.
“If the whole idea is to broaden trade, making it exclusive actually defeats the whole purpose of why you enter into all of these agreements,'' Aquino told a business conference on the APEC sidelines.
Indonesia and South Korea are among other countries that have expressed interest.
The Pan-Pacific trade deal has drawn criticism, however, from China and Russia, which are not part of it.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said today that world trade rules should be drafted within the framework of the World Trade Organization, not regional groupings.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also alluded to the potential conflict between regional deals and global trade rules.
“We need to encourage equal footing participation and extensive consultation and make free trade arrangements open and inclusive to the extent possible,'' Xi said in a speech.
US officials have insisted the trade pact will be open to other countries, as long as they are willing to commit to its rules.
“We welcome China, we welcome Russia, we welcome other countries who would like to join, as long as they want to raise the standards and live up to the highest standards of protecting people and doing business openly and transparently and accountably,'' Secretary of State John Kerry said in a November 2 interview with the Russian TV network Mir, according to a transcript posted online by the State Department.
Still, ratification of the deal by the US Congress is not certain.
Republican lawmakers who had supported the deal appear to be backing off as a US presidential election looms next year. Many Democrats, including the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, oppose the trade pact, which can only be approved or rejected by Congress with no amendments.
Obama acknowledged negotiations were challenging.
“This is not easy to do, the politics of any trade agreement are difficult,'' he said.
Apart from the US and Australia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam have signed on to the accord.
—AP
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=68933
