[CTC] Overnight Suspense over TPP

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Press conference rumored to be at 9:30am...

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826

Overnight suspense over TPP: On verge of completion, big trade deal hit by
delay

http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2015/10/04/is-canada-joining-a-big-new-trade-deal-answer-could-be-a-few-hours-away/#.VhHcJOxVikp

ATLANTA - A last-minute sprint toward a historic trade agreement has turned
into yet another marathon negotiating session, with the suspense rippling
from the negotiating table into Canada's federal election campaign.

Negotiators appeared very close to striking the 12-country Trans-Pacific
Partnership Agreement on Sunday afternoon, with plans to announce the
creation of the world's largest trade zone.

Here's how close: Reporters were brought into a room for a briefing session
on the deal, were made to sign confidentiality agreements to keep the
details secret until a formal announcement, and ziploc bags were
distributed around the table to confiscate cellphones until the news
embargo was lifted.

That briefing never happened Sunday.

A planned news conference to announce the deal was rescheduled — from 4
p.m. to 6 p.m., then 8 p.m., and was eventually postponed indefinitely, in
a fitting finale to a ministerial meeting marked by all-night negotiations
that was intended to last two days, then three, four and finally a
supposedly make-or-break fifth day.

"Look, it's not done yet," said Andrew Robb, Australia's trade minister.

The overnight hours into Monday could prove pivotal in determining whether
the Canadian election experiences a debate on a deal, or a debate on which
party should take over this process after Oct. 19.

The talks appear likely to break up Monday as some ministers planned to
leave for a G20 summit. Japan's envoy has warned he can't stick around
through the day.

It was supposed to be a quiet day off the campaign trail for Stephen
Harper. But his Sunday wound up consumed by trade talks, with the prime
minister in Ottawa getting phone briefings from the negotiating team in
Atlanta.

Another country's minister confirmed that last-minute snags had delayed a
deal. Robb said a struggle over next-generation pharmaceuticals had a
cascading effect on attempts to resolve other issues.

One of those issues, insiders say, is Canadian dairy.

Robb explained that the U.S. and Australia had worked all night into Sunday
to resolve their differences on cutting-edge, cell-based medicines and made
a breakthrough around 3 a.m.

He said they'd succeeded at establishing a model that bridges the gap
between two entrenched positions: the more business-friendly, eight-year
patent-style protections the U.S. wants for biologics, and the more
patient-and-taxpayer-friendly five-year model preferred by Australia and
others.

But that triggered a chain-reaction. Some other countries weren't pleased
with the compromise, and that discussion became more multi-sided with two
or three holdouts remaining, he said.

Canada is not too involved in that skirmish. But the delay, according to
Robb, wound up pushing other issues to the backburner until Sunday morning
and they're still being worked out.

Insiders say access to Canadian grocery shelves is chief among them.
Negotiators have been haggling about how much foreign butter, condensed
milk and other dairy products should be allowed into Canada.

New Zealand helped create the TPP project a decade ago and it wants to sell
more butter in North America — especially in the United States. It says the
U.S., however, won't open its own agriculture sector until getting some
assurance that American producers could sell more in Canada and Mexico.

Currently, 90 per cent of the Canadian dairy market is closed to foreign
products. The system allows for stable incomes in farming communities, but
it limits options and drives up prices at the grocery store.

Representatives of the dairy lobby milled about the convention site late
Sunday. They professed to still be in the dark about what market-access
offer Canada had made.

In an unusual twist, the evening's drama came with a special soundtrack: a
concert by the band Foo Fighters which could be heard throughout the
hotel-convention complex hosting the negotiations.

While negotiators hashed out percentages and contemplated the long-term
consequences on dairy farms and hospitals, many thousands of concertgoers
could be heard chanting nearby, oblivious to the unintentional symbolism,
"I swear I'll never give in... Is someone getting the best, the best, the
best, the best of you?"

An agreement would complete a decade-long process that began with four
countries in Asia and Chile, and spread to the United States, then Canada
and other Latin American countries.

The state of play was summarized by New Zealand's trade minister — who
easily provided the most-memorable quote of the five-day meetings.

Under pressure to obtain foreign access for his own country's dairy, he
told one of his country's newspapers that difficult compromises will have
to be made.

He illustrated it with an unappetizing culinary metaphor.

"It's got the smell of a situation we occasionally see which is that on the
hardest core issues, there are some ugly compromises out there," Tim Groser
told New Zealand's Weekend Herald.

"And when we say ugly, we mean ugly from each perspective — it doesn't mean
'I've got to swallow a dead rat and you're swallowing foie gras.' It means
both of us are swallowing dead rats on three or four issues to get this
deal across the line."
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