Forgot password?
Sign up today and your first download is free.
REGISTER
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.
Less than a year after its signing -- and in spite of a U.S. withdrawal -- the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is set to take effect at the end of 2018 after Australia on Tuesday became the sixth country to ratify the pact.
Japan, Singapore and Mexico have already approved the deal and Vietnam and New Zealand are expected to later this year.
Japan's economy minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Tuesday said six countries were expected to ratify the pact by November.
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.
U.S. agriculture groups say they would be satisfied if a U.S.-Japan trade deal offers them the same levels of market access as those negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a line that Tokyo has laid down for the negotiations.
“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?”
“The barriers he’s putting in place to free trade are a tax on hardworking Americans.”
Japan is slated to be the second country to ratify the deal after Mexico did so in April.
Officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have visited several congressional offices over the past two weeks to discuss the potential for new bilateral trade deals, though several lawmakers said the Trump administration remained in the preliminary stage of its work on what the president has said is a key trade goal.
“We think we are there, we can meet all the standards.”
“We are going to move quickly to introduce legislation before the House rises this summer.”
Addressing WTO reform, fisheries subsidies, Section 232 tariffs, TPP and more.
President Trump could be persuaded to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a way of countering China after he scores some trade “wins,”Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Wednesday.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono and Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray on Thursday pledged to cooperate to get the deal into force quickly.
The New Democrat Coalition, a group of pro-trade Democrats, is slated to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday for the first time to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade initiatives, a spokeswoman for the group told Inside U.S. Trade.
An intellectual property chapter in the North American Free Trade Agreement that is similar to what was agreed to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership would fail to garner the votes needed to win congressional approval for NAFTA 2.0, business and industry representatives pushing for stronger IP provisions tell Inside U.S. Trade.
Rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the best way for the U.S. to address trade concerns with China, Akira Amari, a Japanese lawmaker who negotiated TPP, said on Wednesday.
A slew of intellectual property issues stand in the way of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s goal of concluding the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the end of the month, and stakeholders say the push to quickly wrap up the talks could mean negotiators fall back to language the three parties agreed to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Hassett: “The idea that everything that everybody in the trade space wants to do is hated by a subset of the team is just not accurate.”