U.S. Pledges to Engage in Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks

(World Trade Interactive)

As expected, President Obama has provided few details about his trade policy toward Asia during an ongoing trip in which he has stressed that the U.S. intends to remain fully engaged in the region. Obama said the U.S. will be “engaging with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.” With respect to the pending free trade agreement with South Korea, he said only that the U.S. will “work through the issues necessary to move forward.”

The Bush administration announced in September 2008 that it would launch talks on joining the TPP, an existing free trade agreement among New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Brunei. Shortly after taking office, however, the Obama administration put that decision on hold pending a more comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy. Numerous members of Congress and trade associations have pressed the administration since then to re-engage in the TPP talks on the grounds that Asia represents a key export market for U.S. goods and services and that countries in the region are pursuing a wide variety of trade liberalization efforts that largely exclude the U.S. Read more here.