Major business groups are having reservations about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, despite their support of free trade.
Business leaders, who are President Obama’s key allies in his effort to get his trade agenda approved by Congress, back the deal in theory, but they concede that they don’t know what is going to be in the final version that will go before Congress. The negotiations haven’t closed and several important issues are still being hashed out.
“It seems like some of the hardest issues, like intellectual property, were left to the very end,” said John Murphy, the Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of international affairs. “It will be a huge missed opportunity if we don’t end up with a high-standard agreement.”
Jay Timmons, chief executive officer of the National Association of Manufacturers, said, “There are still some outstanding issues.” He said the negotiations on the deal involving 12 Pacific Rim nations “appear to be going well” but added that “some things still need to gel.”
NAM officials also cited intellectual property protections as a major concern, and said were looking at the language in the deal relating to market access to the larger countries involved such as Japan and Vietnam. China is not included in the deal.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would lower tariffs and set new, uniform regulations for intellectual property, labor and state-owned enterprises for trade among the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Peru. It also would give investors legal protections for doing business in those countries. The deal involves nations that encompass 40 percent of global GDP.
Neither the Chamber nor NAM said that their organization were backing away from the deal, and both indicated that they were optimistic that they could support the final version.
Timmons said getting a good deal depended in part on Congress passing Trade Promotion Authority, aka “fast track,” legislation. That would limit Congress to a simple up or down vote on approving trade deals such as TPP.
The White House has argued that passing fast track would strengthen its hand in completing the negotiations. Timmons agrees: “It would send a signal to our trading partners that the United States is serious.”
Democrats, who typically oppose trade deals, are against the Pacific pact, and some conservative Republicans also have expressed reservations.
“The president said last night that previous trade deals had not lived up to the hype. That may be the understatement of the century,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said at a Wednesday press conference with other House Democrats. “We will fight this tooth and nail, and I believe we are going to win.”
In his speech Tuesday night, Obama urged them to consider what would happen if the United State did not lead trade negotiations in the Asia-Pacific region.
“China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region. That would put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage. Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules,” Obama said.
