No TPPA - talks founder in Hawaii

Talks, thank God(!) have foundered at the laast minute with every country seeking to protect its own patch,whether it be auto, sugar or dairy.

The only thing they seem to have agreed on is to meet again at some future point.

This,I would see as a defeat for John Key and Tim Grosser, that have invested so much political capital in this deal.

I think I have to open a bottle of champagne!!

Talks to conclude a Pacific-wide trade pact have stalled at the latest negotiations

TPP LATEST - Talks to conclude a Pacific-wide trade pact have stalled at the latest negotiations

TPP LATEST - Talks to conclude a Pacific-wide trade pact have stalled at the latest negotiations

Latest TPP talks stall in Hawaii

Talks to conclude a Pacific wide trade pact have stalled at the latest round of negotiations in Hawaii

The United States trade representative Michael Froman said the trade ministers from the 12-nations involved in the Trans Pacific Partnership had made significant progress but would continue to work on issues.

He said he remained confident a deal was within reach.

"I am very impressed with the work that's been done, I feel very confident that through our continued intensive engagement we'll be able to tackle the remaining issues successfully."

Mr Froman said they had not set a date for the next meeting on TPP.

It has been reported that talks failed to bridge differences over key issues such as market access for dairy products, and longer patent protections for medicines.

New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said market access for dairy products continued to be a key sticking point.

However, he said he was extremely confident that they would find the "sweet spot" on dairy and that progress this week had been "streets ahead" of in the past.

New Zealand has faced considerable resistance from Japan and Canada, which are loathe to open up their dairy markets to cheaper producers like New Zealand and the United States.

The news conference which started at 2pm NZT can be viewed here.

*** BREAKING NEWS ***

This is not a drill.

We have been given a reprieve ...the corporate coup has failed for now . But these greedy control freaks will not let up . They have paid countless millions to buy off elected official in all 12 countries and they only stop when it cost them more than what they have to gain.

We have to keep fighting this assault on our freedom and we have to vote out every politician that has supported the TPPA so far.

---Mick McCrohon

Hawaii trade talks stall over dairy, pharmaceuticals and auto concerns

Washington Post,

31 July, 2015

High-level talks to forge a ­12-nation trade deal spanning the Pacific broke up Friday without resolving contentious disputes over Canadian dairy tariffs, the protection of cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” and Japanese access to the North American automobile market.

Negotiators said they would continue to seek agreement over the coming months, but the failure to wrap up the accord, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was a setback for President Obama, who hopes that the completion of a deal will be one of his signature achievements.

Further talks could still produce an accord before the end of the year, but earlier, U.S. officials had been hopeful that the four days of negotiations, which took place this week in beachside hotels on the Hawaiian island of Maui, could produce a final agreement.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said the negotiators would “continue intensive engagement to find common ground” and that he was “more confident than ever that TPP is within reach and will support jobs and economic growth.” Several other trade negotiators expressed optimism in the group’s closing news conference.

Substantial progress was made in certain areas, including the completion of a chapter about environmental protection. Negotiators also made progress on whether geographic places can be trademarks for such items as cheeses.

But the trade ministers could not work out other issues, despite lengthy sessions. The top trade ministers themselves met until well past midnight Thursday but still could not bridge differences over intellectual property and how many years of protection to provide data belonging to the makers of biologic drugs from natural chemicals.

Those companies have 12 years’ protection in the United States under the Affordable Care Act, but some TPP countries offer as little as three years’ protection.

When completed, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be composed of more than 100,000 tariff lines, cover economies with 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, and include more than 20 different chapters addressing issues such as labor conditions, wildlife trafficking, human rights and, of course, trade.

The secret negotiations have drawn sharp criticism from unions, human rights groups and the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats. Obama barely scraped together enough support in June to secure negotiating authority from Congress in a close vote on Trade Promotion Authority commonly known as fast-track.

The delay in wrapping up the terms of the accord makes it more likely that a final agreement would not go to Congress for approval until 2016, when political considerations will be even more in the forefront of lawmakers’ minds. But U.S. officials said any setback would be temporary and that the trade accord, which has been under negotiation for six years, was still within reach. And they have observed that political concerns were already front and center in Congress as well as the presidential campaign.

“The calendar is never your friend,” Susan C. Schwab, President George W. Bush’s trade negotiator, said earlier in the week. “When you have 12 countries, somebody’s always going to have an election.”

One of the week’s toughest issues was how much to cut dairy tariffs in Canada. Canada, the United States’ largest trading partner, is holding elections in October, and the conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, is reluctant to rouse the ire of dairy farmers who benefit from tariffs of up to 296 percent. U.S.-Canada ties have already been strained over the Obama administration’s failure to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from northern Alberta to refineries on the Texas gulf coast.

Canada did offer to reduce the tariffs, but other countries thought the offer wasn’t adequate. New Zealand, in particular, is eager to gain access to the Canadian dairy market and was not satisfied with the proposal.

In a news conference after the meetings, New Zealand’s top trade negotiator, Tim Groser, said that “dairy is always the last issue to be resolved or one of the last two issues to be resolved because it’s been distorted for so many years.” He said that a lot of “the undergrowth has been cleared away” during the week and that they would find “the sweet spot” through further talks.

In other areas, Japan appeared likely to gradually reduce tariffs on pork and beef but was more reluctant to give access to foreign rice growers.

The United States sought to write in a clause that would help establish safeguards so that frivolous lawsuits could not be brought under the investor-state dispute settlement process that was widely criticized by liberal Democrats. The critics said it allows companies to use international arbitration to undercut national regulations.

Japan was also seeking more concessions on what is known as “rules of origin” that determine what national source of auto parts that are made with components from different countries. Japanese automakers want to use components made in non-TPP countries such as Thailand.

The country most notably absent from the talks has been China, the second-largest trading partner with the United States and the biggest trading partner with most of the Asian countries that are part of the accord. Obama has pointedly said that he favors the TPP because he does not want China to be setting lower standards.

“If we are not there helping to shape the rules of the road, then U.S. businesses and U.S. workers are going to be cut out, because there’s a pretty big country there, called China, that is growing fast, has great gravitational pull and often operates with different sets of rules,” Obama said in an interview in June with public radio show “Marketplace.”

Obama said that China had expressed interest in joining the TPP later, but he said that by that time TPP would have set standards and “then China is going to have to at least take those international norms into account.” He said the TPP accord would result in “leveling up, as opposed to a race to the bottom.”

In addition to negotiators, corporate lobbyists and others have been in Maui hoping to corner people involved in the talks. One was Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), who earlier said that he was also concerned about currency ma­nipu­la­tion that could artificially boost a country’s exports; the possibility of long protection times for certain drugs and limits in access that could result; and whether goods from non-TPP countries, such as China, could be incorporated into products made by member countries and turn those non-TPP countries into free riders.

Levin said he also wanted the TPP to explicitly reserve the right of member countries to regulate tobacco products.

In a statement after the news conference, Levin said that “it is wise that the administration did not decide to get a deal done in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations this week, as many key issues remain outstanding while others remain on the wrong track.”

He added that lawmakers “will also need to closely review the still-classified text to assess the extent to which there has been real and sufficient progress on issues such as the environment and investor-state dispute settlement.”


Here is the press conference in Hawaii

From Bloomberg, not the Herald

Trade talks held up as New Zealand pushes Canada for dairy access

NZ Herald,

1 August, 2015

Negotiations on a landmark free-trade pact among 12 Pacific nations stumbled as pressure mounted on Canada to soften its stance on limiting dairy imports.

After months of demands from nations including the United States, Australia and New Zealand to open its dairy markets as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada outlined a proposal during talks in Hawaii that other nations rejected as inadequate, according to two people briefed on the negotiations.

Frustration over the Canadian position has darkened negotiators' mood on the sun-drenched island of Maui, where talks are scheduled to run through Friday. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, the host of the meeting, has called on nations to tackle the "tough political issues" standing in the way of an agreement.

"The good thing is that Canada is talking now," Mike Petersen, New Zealand's special trade envoy for agriculture, said Wednesday in an interview.

"But we haven't seen enough, and this is not something we can sell at home."

Optimism had been high going into the talks after six years of negotiations on a pact that would stretch beyond a normal trade deal to take in such issues as intellectual property and state-owned enterprises. An agreement would clear barriers to commerce among nations that produce 40 percent of global economic output and is a centerpiece of the U.S. administration's strategic refocus on Asia.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has pledged to reach a deal, signaled from Ottawa that the team led by Trade Minister Ed Fast has the flexibility to reach an accord.

"Given that we are a trading nation, and given the global economy is the way of the future, we cannot be left out of this kind of trade arrangement," Harper said in an interview on Wednesday. "The government is at the table making sure it protects the interest, as best we can, of every Canadian industry."

Still, Canada's offer on Maui fell short of what its trade partners expected, according to the people briefed on the talks. The absence of extensive staff-level work with Canada before the Hawaii meeting kicked off also handicapped the talks, the people said, asking not to be named given the sensitivity of the negotiations.

A Canadian government official dismissed the idea that the country is holding up talks or that it dragged its heels, saying Fast and his chief negotiator have spoken regularly with their counterparts in recent months.

"We've been a serious and constructive negotiating partner," Rick Roth, a spokesman for Fast, said in an email. "I view this type of pressure tactic as just more negotiating through the media, and we've been consistent in not engaging in that."

Trevor Kincaid, a spokesman for Froman, declined to comment.

The Hawaii talks come on the eve of an election campaign in Canada, as polls signal Harper's Conservatives are at risk of losing. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday that Harper on Aug. 2 or Aug. 3 will call an election campaign. Conservatives regularly tout their record in signing new trade pacts and have said being included in TPP is essential.

Harper will be under pressure to end protection of farmers in order to be included in the TPP, but faces domestic pressure from the dairy industry -- concentrated in Ontario and Quebec, the two most vote-rich provinces -- to preserve the lucrative system of quotas and tariffs and keep Canada's borders at least partially closed to milk, cheese and other protected industries.

A better Canadian offer could resolve the interlocking disagreements common at the end phase of trade talks, Petersen of New Zealand said. Without that, the U.S. won't give New Zealand better access to its market, and in turn wouldn't have the credibility to demand Japan allow more dairy imports.

"If Canada doesn't open to the U.S., none of those dominoes will fall," Petersen said.

The issue looms particularly large for New Zealand, which sells more than 90 percent of its dairy production abroad, accounting for 27 percent of its total exports, Petersen said.

Wally Smith, president of Dairy Farmers of Canada, said he had "no reason to believe" his country couldn't reach an agreement in Hawaii.

The Canadian system limits imports and domestic production to raise prices its dairy farmers receive. Smith suggested Canada has flexibility to increase imports as long as the change can be forecast.

"Predictable imports will allow us to manage the system on behalf of all Canadians," he said in an interview.

Canada has previously concluded trade pacts with other nations that affected its supply management system. In a deal with the European Union in 2013, Canadian negotiators held back concessions until the last few days of talks, then cushioned the blow with promises to compensate farmers.

- Bloomberg

Jane Kelsey: TPPA ministerial fails – time for Key and Groser to cut their losses

Evening Report,

1 August, 2015

‘The “final” ministerial meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in Maui has failed. Not opting to stay another day shows the gridlock is serious and potentially intractable’, according to University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey.

‘Everyone is blaming each other in Maui’, Kelsey said. ‘But the underlying reason for the gridlock is the domestic opposition in almost all the TPPA countries.’

‘People simply don’t believe a deal that raises the price of medicines and handcuffs the right of governments to regulate is in their national interests’.

‘Despite erecting a shroud of secrecy around the negotiations, politicians know they can’t sign a final deal that they can’t sell at home.’

Professor Kelsey notes that Minister Groser’s sales job got much harder this week.

After years of denial, he and the Prime Minister have now confessed that medicines will indeed cost more, that the TPPA will prevent tighter restrictions on foreign investments, and that foreign investors might indeed sue New Zealand and win under the TPPA.

‘Those confessions raised the political price of the TPPA and meant the Minister couldn’t accept a cosmetic deal. Despite downgrading his ambitions from the initial “full liberalisation” to something “commercially meaningful” for dairy, even that was not achievable.’

Time has now almost run out. The US Fast Track law sets out a complicated process the US must follow. US consumer organisation Public Citizen calculates the absolute minimum amount of time is about 3 months.[1] 

Under the more likely timeframe, if negotiations do not conclude until September the earliest Congress would vote on the TPP is January 2016, when the path to passage will be more politically fraught. That is US election year. The last thing Hillary Clinton, other Democrats and many Republicans want is a vote on a politically toxic deal mid-campaign.

‘Hopefully the groundswell of media coverage and discussion in New Zealand this week, along with a stronger position from Labour and the Waitangi Tribunal claim, have created enough pressure on the government to cut its losses and walk away’, Kelsey said.

‘At the very least, before the negotiations resume we need to see the text and the options clearly laid out, and have an independent and comprehensive cost benefit analysis that can be debated in an open and democratic way’.

‘I and others will seek to advance that openness with the judicial review proceedings of the Minister’s refusal to release documents under the Official Information Act, to be filed early next week’.

[1] http://www.citizen.org/documents/TPP-vote-calendar.pdf