Trade ministers from the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries opened final-stretch negotiations Wednesday trying to seal a deal on the world’s largest free-trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Ministers are aiming over two days to bridge differences over a number of key issues, which stood in the way of a hoped-for agreement during top-level talks in Hawaii in July.
Chief among these are US import barriers on some Japanese car parts, market openings to New Zealand dairy products, and the length of patent protections for life-saving new-generation drugs.
Asked if a final deal was possible by the end of talks Thursday, a US official, speaking anonymously, would only answer, “We hope so.” Washington, the main driver behind the pact when discussions began in 2008, wants a deal soon to avoid the issue of ratifying it crashing into the 2016 presidential and congressional elections.
The United States is pushing hard for the 12-country deal to create the world’s largest free trade region, hoping to lock in rules that global trade heavyweight China would eventually have to heed.
China, however, has already begun trying to set up its own Asia trade agreement, which analysts worry could take concrete shape if TPP talks fail.
The meeting of the trade ministers from the 12 — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam — follows four days of detailed discussions between their negotiators in the southern US city.
– Cost of life-saving drugs –
The TPP would lower trade and investment barriers and strengthen intellectual property protections in countries comprising about 40 percent of the global economy.
According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, the stimulus from the TPP pact could add $295 billion in annual global income after the 10-year implementation period.
But the details of the talks are couched in deep secrecy, drawing the ire of civil society groups who, citing some leaked preliminary texts, say they are likely to help businesses while hurting ordinary people.
On Wednesday a small group of protestors marched through the lobby of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, the site of negotiations, chanting “No TPP! Stop Corporate Greed.”
Opponents to the deal say that, for one, large pharmaceutical companies were using the agreement to lengthen protections for biologic drugs — drugs that are produced using living organisms — to at least eight years from the current widespread standard of five years.
The critics say that the longer protection will drive up the cost of potentially life-saving cancer drugs and other treatments.
Among key issues still on the table after Hawaii were the opening of US and Canadian markets to New Zealand and Australian dairy product exports; US barriers to sugar imports; and US barriers on auto parts imports from outside the US-Canada-Mexico NAFTA free-trade region.
Japanese automakers in the United States want to be able to import parts more freely from supply chains in other countries like China and Thailand, but Mexico and Canada have both bristled at the idea, which could hurt their substantial auto industries.
TPP negotiators are aiming to present a final, unalterable agreement for ratification to the governments, an approach that has angered legislators and public groups in a number of the countries, especially the United States.
Trade analyst Sean West of the Eurasia Group said a final deal is likely by the end of the year, if not in Atlanta this week.
“It goes without saying that there would be no ministerial this week if there hadn’t been substantial progress in side talks,” he said.
“The TPP countries at the table are all-in and committed to finalizing the deal in short order.”