[CTC_TRADE] Domestic dairy, sugar and textile groups warn on TPP

[Andrew Gussert]

Mar 3, 2010 


Warning on Obama trade plan 


http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_497227.html


WASHINGTON - PRESIDENT Barack Obama's plan to negotiate an Asia Pacific free
trade pact could have a devastating impact on the dairy, sugar and textile
sectors in the United States, US industry groups warned on Tuesday.
Negotiators from the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Vietnam,
Chile, Singapore and Brunei will meet in Melbourne, Australia on March 15
for the first round of talks on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
pact.

It is Mr Obama's first big trade initiative since taking office. Although
most major US farm and business groups support the proposed agreement,
domestic dairy, sugar and textile groups and their supporters in Congress
worry about possibly having to open the US market to foreign competitors.
'Any expansion of dairy trade between the US and New Zealand would impose
considerable economic harm on US dairy producers, as well as on many in the
US dairy processing sector,' the National Milk Producers Federation said in
remarks prepared for a US International Trade Commission hearing on the
proposed pact. 

US milk producers complained that one New Zealand Company, Fonterra,
'controls over 90 per cent of the milk produced in that country, meaning
that we are essentially pitted against a monopoly power.' 

-- REUTERS

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Andrew Gussert
Director, Citizens Trade Campaign
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