Washington — The United States and eight other Pacific countries have agreed upon the broad outlines of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which President Obama says can be a model for future trade agreements, and intend to finalize the TPP in the coming year.
Speaking November 12 in Hawaii on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Obama said there are “still plenty of details to work out” between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam, but said all nine countries are optimistic that the agreement can be finalized in 2012.
“The TPP will boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports, and creating more jobs for our people,” Obama said.
“Taken together, these eight economies would be America’s fifth-largest trading partner. We already do more than $200 billion in trade with them every single year, and with nearly 500 million consumers between us, there’s so much more that we can do together,” he said.
The president said the TPP addresses issues that are not covered by past trade agreements, such as ways of making market regulations more compatible, creating opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to compete in the global marketplace, and setting high standards to protect workers’ rights and the environment.
Obama and other leaders of the TPP countries issued a joint statement November 12 that describes the broad outline of the agreement as “a milestone” in their “common vision to establish a comprehensive, next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment and addresses new and traditional trade issues and 21st-century challenges.”
Representatives of the nine countries will meet in early December to continue the negotiations and schedule additional rounds for 2012, according to the statement.
“We share a strong interest in expanding our current partnership of nine geographically and developmentally diverse countries to others across the region. As we move toward conclusion of an agreement, we have directed our negotiating teams to continue talks with other trans-Pacific partners that have expressed interest in joining the TPP in order to facilitate their future participation,” the statement says.