[CTC] Public TPP text coming this month?

[Arthur Stamoulis]

"Informed sources said that the administration ... may publish the text of the agreement in about three weeks."


Inside U.S. Trade
Daily News
Obama Predicts Eventual TPP Approval; Poised To Notify Congress
Posted: October 06, 2015
President Obama on Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 6) predicted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will ultimately be approved by Congress after a spirited public debate that will show the agreement offers considerable benefits to American business and workers.
Obama said he is “confident that the case to be made for why this is good for America is sufficiently strong” and that ultimately, we're going to get this done."
Obama said it will be months before Congress will vote on TPP, but informed sources said that the administration is determined to move fast on advancing the process. For example, informed sources said Obama is poised to notify Congress as early as this week of his intention to sign the agreement.
Under the fast-track law, he needs to make this notification 90 days before he signs the deal. No later than 30 days after the notification, the administration has to publish the text of the deal. Informed sources said that the administration is determined to beat that 30 day-deadline and may publish the text of the agreement in about three weeks.
Speaking on Oct. 5, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicated that the full TPP text would be released in a matter of days. He also said he expected the deal to be signed early next year and ratified during the next two years.
Sources said that TPP countries have agreed that the deal will enter into force once at least six countries representing 85 percent of the region's economic activity have ratified the deal. This reflects a Japanese proposal that had gained <http://insidetrade.com/node/149370> support among the TPP countries.
One source said that U.S. officials during the Atlanta meetings made clear that they are under enormous pressure to finish up the legal review of the TPP as soon as possible. But the source cautioned that he did not believe the U.S. would publish the TPP text before others countries are also ready to do so. TPP officials stayed in Atlanta for several days after the ministerial ended on Oct. 5 to work on the legal scrub.
The release of the full TPP text will likely coincide with the release of the currency side agreement that Treasury has been negotiating with the finance ministries of other TPP countries, according to informed sources.
Obama spoke at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a forum to tout the benefits of TPP. Attending the forum were business and agriculture representatives, mayors and governors, as well as Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and National Economic Council Director Jeff Zients.
U.S. officials view the increased access to the Japanese market for U.S. agriculture exports as one of the main benefits of TPP.
According to Obama, it will be an “enormous achievement” for the U.S. to be able to ensure through TPP that 40 percent of the world's economy is operating under trade rules that does not hurt U.S. business.
Obama said he expected “some misinformation propagated around this” agreement when its full text is being released in the near term. He said the administration will not just talk about TPP benefits to members of Congress but also the American public and other constituencies, such as governors and mayors about why TPP is good for their communities.
He cited as among the benefits of the TPP the elimination of 18,000 “taxes” that foreign countries impose on American exports and said “most of them will fall to zero.” As an example, he said that Vietnam puts a “tax of as much as 70 percent on every car American automakers sell in Vietnam, and Malaysia puts as much as a 30 percent “tax” on auto parts.
Obama implied that removing these tariffs will lead to American companies to continue producing in the U.S. instead of moving production offshore. He said given the high tariff barriers, American companies “feel compelled” to produce overseas to sell in a foreign market. But if tariffs come down on U.S. exports, “that means U.S. companies that are investing here are able to sell over there without a disadvantage.”
This vision of how free-trade agreements work is contradicted by critics who charge that multinational companies move production offshore to a low-wage country and re-export their goods back to the U.S. duty free.
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