[CTC] IUST: Administration To Keep Spotlight On TPP, Not TTIP

[Dolan, Mike]

"... the U.S. presidential election and the UK potentially leaving the EU could derail the [TTIP] ..."


Daily News
Keating: Administration Aiming To Keep Spotlight On TPP, Not TTIP
March 27, 2016

A leader of the congressional caucus for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership said this week that the Obama administration is not focused on selling the TTIP deal publicly at this time because it wants to maintain the spotlight on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and signaled that he believes a TTIP deal could be reached this year.

"I don't think [the administration] is doing as much talking on TTIP," Rep. William Keating (D-MA), co-chair of the TTIP caucus, said in a March 21 interview with Inside U.S. Trade. "The 12 [negotiating rounds] so far, they're doing this procedurally, I think they just don't want to take attention away from TPP and they feel the more they talk about this people may interpret this as they're shifting gears and they don't want to do that."

"I'm disappointed that TPP is up front but the administration had no choice frankly; TTIP was fairly down the road to begin with," said Keating, who has historically opposed free trade agreements and voted against fast track in 2015. He spoke after making remarks at a reception hosted by the British embassy and the British-American Business Council.

Keating's sentiment was echoed by UK Member of Parliament Andrew Percy, who led a delegation of seven British MPs to the U.S. this week on a fact-finding trip to enable them to better sell TTIP at home. The MPs are members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on TTIP.

"A lot of the discussion we've had has been around the TPP issue here," Percy said in an interview on the sidelines of the reception. "It seems to be taking up a lot more American -- it's certainly much more deeply penetrating the American consciousness then the TTIP, which is a positive for TTIP as far as I'm concerned."

Both Keating and Percy were upbeat on the prospects for concluding TTIP in 2016, arguing that it is possible to overcome the contentious issues that have slowed the talks.

Keating told Inside U.S. Trade that he believed working through tariff offers would be relatively easy due to the fact that the EU is currently the United States' largest trading partner, but argued that harmonizing regulations would be more of a challenge.

"They're also our biggest trading partner already and the tariff part should be reasonably easy. The standardization [of regulations] should be more difficult but also holds the most promise, and we can do that," he said "The overwhelming benefit of this is such that I think it's almost inevitable."

Percy repeatedly emphasized that he picked up positive signals about the negotiations from both sides during his trip and that the U.S. and EU are "confident [TTIP] can be concluded in a relatively reasonable period of time."

But he conceded that the U.S. presidential election and the UK potentially leaving the EU could derail the deal. When pressed on whether specific negotiating areas that so far have been contentious -- such as geographical indications, agriculture market access and government procurement -- could prevent the deal from being concluded he generally recognized that those areas were challenging and that more negotiating is required, but said "the issues are not insurmountable."

Although he stressed that he does not know what the U.S. has offered on government procurement, Percy said a potential move by the U.S. to lower the monetary thresholds above which EU suppliers get the same treatment as U.S. companies would be important. Informed sources have said the U.S. procurement offer in TTIP would lower the thresholds for central government entities.

The seven-member UK delegation met with officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Department of Agriculture, trade unions and "a range of stakeholders," according to Percy.

Keating said he was confident that, if concluded, a TTIP deal would ultimately pass Congress for three reasons. First, he said the lack of attention being given to the U.S.-EU agreement compared to the controversy surrounding TPP will aid efforts to get TTIP through Congress.

Second, he said the public criticism of TPP in the presidential campaign is causing some members of Congress to shy away from staking out a position on trade issues, but that TTIP is not drawing similar denouncements because it remedies issues raised by TPP critics.

This is because the U.S. and EU have similar baselines when it comes to issues such as labor rights, environmental protection and intellectual property rights but getting some TPP members to meet the TPP standards touted by the U.S. on those issues is considered by free trade skeptics as an uphill battle.

Third, Keating argued that the strategic value of the agreement -- both in regards to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and the need for the U.S. and EU to lead in setting global trade rules in order to prevent others who do not share U.S. and EU values from doing so -- would convince free-trade opponents to support the deal.

"If you look at the EU as a whole, this could be such a stabilizing force, and I've had members who are more Tea Party oriented who are really reluctant towards free trade, but you know what has brought them over? The security factors. When you look at Ukraine, when you look at what's going on in Europe, the threats that are there, our strength is in our economy. So we've even brought people who wouldn't be free trade people forward because of the security issues as well," Keating said.

In his public remarks at the reception, Keating argued that TTIP would be essential in setting labor and environmental standards in trade agreements going forward and if the U.S and EU failed to conclude the deal, other countries with lower standards would fill the void.




Michael F. Dolan, J.D.
Legislative Representative
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Desk  202.624.6891
Fax    202.624.8973
Cell    202.437.2254

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