Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Republican members of Congress this week to complain that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was negotiated in secret, something that won’t help liberalize trade in Asia.
“Overall, the creation of new free trade zones will help to create conditions for liberalizing trade and investment in the region,” Putin wrote late Monday in USA Today. “At the same time, however, the confidential fashion in which the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations were conducted is probably not the best way to facilitate sustainable growth in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Republicans in the House and Senate have said the confidentially negotiated TPP has now been exposed as a deal that doesn’t benefit the U.S. enough.
But Putin’s complaint was that the joint development of trade liberalization practices would best help Asia. He said that can’t happen unless trade deals are done in a coordinated fashion.
Putin wrote that Russia is developing its own joint trade agreement with countries like Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and said that deal was meant to be integrated with other regional deals.
To help coordinate them better, Putin said the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC, should coordinate regional trade deals.
“We need to work out common approaches to development and regulation of the emerging markets that make up the digital technology-based ‘new economy,'” Putin wrote. “We need to put in place the institutions and rules that will foster new opportunities for our countries’ business people to create promising products and high quality jobs.”
