Trans-Pacific Partnership

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week identified U.S.-China trade relations as a major factor shaping U.S. foreign policy this year, with many lawmakers questioning Washington’s strategy toward Beijing.

“The biggest threat to the USMCA in establishing a strong global baseline for IP protection lies in its exclusion of a whole swathe of the Canadian economy.”

The Trump administration's negotiating objectives for a U.S.-Japan free trade agreement include weaker investment and dispute settlement language than those included in prior deals, according to former trade officials and other sources.

The Trump administration will have its hands full in 2019, with new talks slated to begin with Brussels, Tokyo, London and potentially more, as well as the implementation of a revised deal with South Korea. The fate of the U.S.-Mexico -Canada Agreement will also be determined next year by a new Congress.

Ag groups cite CPTPP, EU-Japan deal in warning that U.S. producers could be hurt.

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement could give U.S. poultry and egg producers less access to the Canadian market than Ottawa offered in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and in one case less than what the industry enjoys under NAFTA, Inside U.S. Trade has learned.

Japan, Singapore and Mexico have already approved the deal and Vietnam and New Zealand are expected to later this year.

A new state-owned enterprise chapter in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement expands the definition of SOEs but otherwise largely mirrors language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, drawing praise from key trade advisers.

“How do we tell the U.S. and Mexico that we won’t surrender Canadian markets, reduce labour standards and open ourselves up to massive job loss when that is exactly what we are in the process of doing with ten other nations?”