Time for Obama’s TPP ducks to line up: Andrew Robb
Andrew Robb remains hopeful the US congress will allow Barack Obama to fast-track Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks.
Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb remains hopeful the US congress will allow Barack Obama to fast-track Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks, following its refusal to back the US President’s pleas to grant him the negotiating authority crucial for the creation of the 12-nation trade group.
“There is always a lot of cut and thrust in these things and politics being played,” Mr Robb said yesterday. “There is another opportunity next week to get the ducks lined up … I remain hopeful the relevant legislation will ultimately pass, which would provide the necessary momentum to conclude the negotiations.”
The US Senate has already approved two measures that would, if agreed by the House of Representatives, effectively grant Mr Obama the authority to negotiate the TPP without bringing every clause back to congress — with the prospect there of revision or filibustering.
But the house, while approving a trade promotion bill, also convincingly and crucially defeated a linked trade-adjustment assistance measure over the weekend.
Nancy Pelosi, the veteran house minority leader, would not concede to the President’s entreaties — and her opposition proved crucial, with the Democratic Party’s left and unionist wings since celebrating their success.
There remains a minor chance of Mr Obama persuading sufficient colleagues to change their minds. It would be almost two years before his successor as president could revisit the issue. The prospect of failure thus now looms large. This would mark a massive watershed in international relations.
It would see the immediate elevation, by default, of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, to take its place as the cornerstone of a new multilateralism in Asia.
This is a hub based on the 10 nations of ASEAN, but with its real leadership in Beijing, whose regional narrative — the suite of Silk Road “dreams” including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — would effectively sweep Asia without American response.
Australia but not the US would become a member of the RCEP. So would Japan, whose Economic Minister Akira Amari, like Mr Robb, remained publicly supportive of hopes that the TPP remained alive.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had spoken powerfully to the US congress in April of the crucial importance of its approving the creation of the TPP.
The Greens’ trade spokesman, Peter Whish-Wilson, welcomed the “failure of President Obama’s fast-track legislative package’’. He said if Mr Obama could not persuade Ms Pelosi and a majority of his Democrats to back the TPP, “it really must be a terrible trade deal’’.
But Mr Robb said the TPP brings “the promise of enormous benefits, new levels of market access, a more seamless trading environment across countries representing 49 per cent of the world’s GDP and lower costs for businesses. This will translate into jobs, growth and higher living standards.”