Baucus Calls for TPA by June, Promises to "Buckle Down" on TPP
A bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority bill should appear in the Senate by June, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said during an April 24 hearing. Baucus, who announced his retirement April 22, also called for a renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance and serious work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.“I do intend to double down,” Baucus said, referring to the TPP, the topic of the hearing. “We’re going to get this thing done.”
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Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Congress has yet to see any “real commitment” by the White House to secure TPA. Congress can craft legislation on its own, he said, but a formal response from the administration sends a “strong signal” that the President is serious about trade agreements. Fellow Committee Republican John Thune of South Dakota questioned whether the Obama administration is “running the risk of holding up conclusion of TPP, if they continue to delay their request for TPA.”
Karan Bhatia, VP of Global Government Affairs and Policy at General Electric -- and a former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative -- told the committee that while TPA isn’t necessary for trade negotiations to occur, “it gets harder to get closure on the very tough issues in the absence of assurance ... If the goal is to close [TPP] this year, then we need to get TPA and we need to get it relatively soon.”
On TPP, Committee members and witnesses stressed familiar concerns, including Japan’s potential entry (see 13042208). Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., called it a “country that’s spent 80 years blocking our auto industry,” while others said the country’s agriculture sectors were also restrictive. Bhatia said Japan represents an enormous opportunity; a major economy the U.S. can tap into through TPP. “Japan’s been a slow growth country,” he said. But TPP could enable it to gather the internal political will required to make tough choices on trade, which is a “tremendously beneficial opportunity,” Bhatia said.
Senators also repeated calls for strong intellectual property protections in the TPP, especially in biologics. Hatch said TPP should include the 12-year protection rule, which is the standard in U.S. law. The Obama administration has, thus far, not agreed to push that standard in the TPP. “I’m concerned the administration is more preoccupied with placating various left wing interest groups than protecting innovators and content makers that create U.S. jobs,” Hatch said.
Witness David Hirschmann, president of the Global Intellectual Property Center at the Chamber of Commerce, said ensuring the 12-year standard in the TPP is necessary for the agreement to be approved in Congress. “U.S. negotiators should always start at the minimum in U.S. law,” he said. Strong intellectual property protections within the TPP are also important, since the agreement will likely influence the future of trade. Countries like China and India are “watching to see what we do here,” he said. “So it’s good offense but it’s also good defense.”
It's important that U.S. negotiators ensure that the agreement protects IP, which "generates jobs, stimulates innovation, ensures consumer safety and, probably not as well understood, ... ensures that we are able to take new, innovative products to markets around the world," Hirschmann said. "Some countries are moving in the wrong direction," he said, citing "recent negative trends, for example, in India." The agreement should have strong protections without exceptions proposed by other countries, he continued. "If you don't move forward, you are indeed falling back. Technology changes."