Trans-Pacific Partnership

Industry officials, trade analysts and a key Obama administration digital trade negotiator on Thursday warned that the U.S. must quickly work with trading partners to secure digital trade rules in trade agreements that are at least as ambitious as those agreed to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Heraldo Muñoz writes in the New York Times that last month's Viña del Mar meeting “has set us on our way.”

U.S.-Japan Caucus co-chairs Reps. Dave Reichert (D-WA) and Joaquin Castro (D-TX) voiced support Monday evening for expanding trade with Japan without taking a stance on what shape a potential agreement would take. Japan is still cool to the idea of a bilateral free trade agreement following the U.S. decision to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership, sources have told Inside U.S. Trade.

The United States is interested in integrating into bilateral trade agreements some standards negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to Chile’s ambassador to the United States.

The former USTR, in Japan, says the deal “will make its way into effect, in one form or another.”

VINA DEL MAR, CHILE -- The U.S. ambassador to Chile and a bipartisan group of congressional aides who attended the High-Level Dialogue on Integration Initiatives in the Asia-Pacific Region sought to reassure the 14 other participating countries that it is open to expanding trade, but most countries showed an inclination to move forward with multilateral arrangements despite the U.S. preference for bilateral deals, officials and sources said here.

VINA DEL MAR, CHILE -- The United States did not attend a working breakfast meeting for Trans-Pacific Partnership countries on Wednesday because it was not invited, according to officials here.

VINA DEL MAR, CHILE – Mexico’s foreign minister believes aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership could find their way into the so-called Pacific Alliance – a trade bloc consisting of Chile, Peru, Mexico and Colombia – but Australia’s trade minister, Steven Ciobo, said it was still too early to guess where TPP without the U.S. might end up.