Final meeting for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be held next week
A conclusion meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will be held this September 26th to 29th in Atlanta. The aim of the meeting is to resolve a few outstanding issues with all the countries involved. However, the meeting could be longer as the U.S is planning to finish the pact before the 2016 U.S general election takes place.
The TPP is an effort by Obama administration to cut trade barriers between countries in the different region from the United States, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia. The agreement will set a common trade standard for 40 percent of the world economy. Reuters reported that if this agreement is a success, this will be the greatest achievement for President Barack Obama.
According to an official, previous meeting in Maui, Hawaii met a dead end as there are still few main economic issues that the countries could not agree on. Key ministers and representatives from the U.S, Japan, Canada, and Mexico could not agree on the number of cars need to be produced by each countries to ensure it will be traded duty-free according to The Wall Street Journal.
Currently, countries under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are enjoying the benefit in the automotive industry with supply chain threshold set to be 62.5 percent local content. However, under TPP these countries will have to agree of having a much less threshold and would drive auto parts maker country like Thailand to obtain more profit.
Besides automotive, agreement on dairy product production also meet a dead end. The dairy product is the number one export in New Zealand and the country is not fond on restructuring the system as it could harm local farmers. TPP could disrupt the supply chain and the price of the dairy products. United States, Canada, and Japan are all disagree with the current agreement as it could cause lots of competition with local farmers.
According to CNBC, involved countries also disagree with the period for property right for biological drugs suggested by the U.S. The United States is pushing for 12 years protection which is higher than what has been set by Australia and New Zealand. Washington defense their action saying that the higher price of drugs is necessary to ensure high impact research could be conducted. However, the human right movement argues that drug affordability is needed to ensure less developed country to enjoy the same benefit.
TPP is an economic reformation solution created under Obama's administration as a way to balance the economic trade between the country and Asia. However, China is not involved with the agreement as the country is considered by Washington to be at a different economic level compared to the countries involved.