<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""><a href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Japan-s-lower-house-ratifies-TPP-as-US-prospects-diminish" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Japan-s-lower-house-ratifies-TPP-as-US-prospects-diminish</a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> </span></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class="">November 10, 2016 5:13 pm JST<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div></div><h1 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class="">Japan's lower house ratifies TPP as US prospects diminish<o:p class=""></o:p></span></h1><div class=""><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class="">TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's House of Representatives voted to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and passed a related bill Thursday, despite diminishing prospects for the ratification of the pact by the United States following Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> Following the vote during a plenary session of the Diet's lower house, the decision will automatically stand after 30 days, even if the House of Councillors, or upper house, does not vote in favor.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> The upper house steering committee is expected to schedule a plenary session for Friday, while the ruling parties are said to be considering an extension of the current extraordinary Diet session, set to end Nov. 30.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> The coalition of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito party has rushed to get the pact approved during the current session, with Abe aiming for Japan to be the first of the 12 Pacific Rim signatories to ratify it.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> The ruling parties were able to pass the TPP bills using their lower house majority, despite protests by opposition lawmakers who argued the vote was inappropriate given the U.S. political outlook and farm minister Yuji Yamamoto's gaffes related to the matter.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> LDP lawmakers had said Japan hoped to send a message to the United States by taking the initiative in ratifying the TPP, but the pact's future in Washington looks dark following the victory of Republican businessman and TPP opponent Trump in Tuesday's presidential election.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw water on the possibility of the U.S. Congress ratifying the TPP during the "lame duck" period between now and the end of President Barack Obama's term in January, despite Obama's earlier pledges to get the pact ratified on his watch.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> Both houses of Congress remained under Republican control following Tuesday's elections in tandem with the presidential race.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> Wrangling between Japan's ruling and opposition parties saw several postponements to planned votes on the pact before Tsutomu Sato, chief of the lower house steering committee and an LDP lawmaker, used his discretionary authority to convene Thursday's plenary session of the chamber.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> The opposition has maintained its call for Yamamoto to resign since he said at a fundraising party in August that Sato could decide to railroad the TPP through parliament.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class="">After the furor over that remark subsided, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to put the pact to a lower house vote on Nov. 4, but clashed again after Yamamoto described his earlier remark as a "joke that almost got me fired" at another party on Nov. 1.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> The prime minister of New Zealand, one of the member countries involved in early negotiations that led to the TPP, expressed pessimism Thursday over the future of the pact even as the New Zealand parliament prepared to begin its final reading of a ratification bill later in the day.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> "The probability of it passing in (Washington's) lame duck period...if it's not zero, it's very close to zero," John Key told a New Zealand radio show.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Default Sans Serif';" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div></body></html>