[CTC] Froman: USTR working hard to resolve TPP concerns

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Politico Pro
Froman: USTR working hard to resolve TPP concerns

By Doug Palmer <https://www.politicopro.com/staff/doug-palmer>
10/19/16 01:06 PM EDT

The Obama administration is working hard to resolve Republican concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership to set the stage for a lame-duck vote on the pact, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said Wednesday.

"We're going to do everything we can to get it done this year," Froman said in a taped interview with Laura Lane, chairman of the Coalition of Services Industries, that aired at the start of the group's annual meeting. "We've been up on the Hill a great deal, talking to members, individually and in groups." 

Republicans have a short but significant list of concerns about the pact. One important issue: clarifying whether the domestic regulations of the 11 other TPP countries provide eight or more years of data protection for biologic medicines. Members of Congress, including Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch <https://cd.politicopro.com/member/51191>, are concerned that the pact actually guarantees only five. 

Republicans also dislike a provision that would leave the tobacco industry out of investor-state dispute settlement protections and are concerned the decision could be the start of a "slippery slope" that would extend similar treatment to other farm or food products in future agreements. 

The administration has already taken steps to address concerns about a third provision that would exclude financial services companies from a groundbreaking TPP measure that would bar countries from requiring companies to store data locally, promising to address it in other trade pacts, such as the Trade in Services Agreement. 

But Republicans still want a binding, enforceable commitment from all TPP members, including those like Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei that aren't involved in TISA.

In a fourth area, Republicans are pressing for plans on how countries would implement their commitments to ensure the United States actually receives the benefits it negotiated into the agreement.

Froman acknowledged the difficult political environment for the TPP, with both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton opposing the pact. But that will not deter President Barack Obama and the rest of his administration from pushing for a vote in the lame duck, he said. 

The chief U.S. trade negotiator also said he didn't buy into the narrative that trade agreements have become too toxic to handle.

"I don't think the situation is quite as dire as some of the rhetoric and the headlines would suggest," Froman said, adding that a number of polls show that most Americans understand the benefits of trade.

However, "trade agreements become the scapegoat" for job dislocation, whether it is actually caused by increased imports or by improvements in technology that the manufacture of goods using fewer employees, Froman said.

"As a country, we need to do more" to help displaced workers find new opportunities, regardless of how they lost their jobs, Froman said.

 
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