Trade Agenda Unlikely to Advance in Obama's Second Term, Says Cato Analyst
The administration is unlikely to secure Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), nor will it conclude Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, before the end of President Barack Obama’s second term, said Cato trade analyst Daniel Pearson. The administration is not demonstrating obvious commitment to TPA passage, and the absence of TPA legislation could derail trade pact negotiations, said Pearson, in an argument commonly referenced by critics of the administration’s trade policy. “It seems inconceivable that the other countries negotiating TPP or TTIP would be willing to complete those packages under circumstances in which Congress would be free to amend them by refusing to approve provisions that are politically sensitive in the United States,” said Pearson. “Ambassador Froman appears to be interested in completing the TPP negotiations, then using that agreement as bait to get the Congress to vote in favor of fast-track authority. That approach is backward and has a very low probability of working.” TTIP is more likely to survive a continuing period of U.S. domestic political uncertainty on the trade agenda, but TPP faces more difficult obstacles, said Pearson
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
“It’s unclear whether nations negotiating the TPP would be willing to wait three years until the United States gets its act together,” said Pearson. “Although possible, it probably is unlikely that they would conclude an agreement without the United States. Assured access to the U.S. market is valuable to many countries, so a version of TPP that doesn’t include the world’s largest economy is worth less to them. Those countries also must deal with their internal politics; their governments might change before any agreement can be finalized. The future of TPP is quite uncertain.”