Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Is Reached
By JACKIE CALMES

ATLANTA — The United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific basin nations on Monday agreed after years of negotiations to the largest regional trade accord in history, an economic pact envisioned as a bulwark against China’s power and a standard-setter for global commerce, worker rights and environmental protection.

The announcement here that weary trade officials had finally agreed on the Trans-Pacific Partnership was merely “an important first step,” the United States trade representative, Michael B. Froman, said. Now their agreement faces months of debate in each of the 12 nations, including in Congress, where some bipartisan opposition was immediate.

The trade issue also is certain to become a flash point of presidential politics in 2016, with populist anti-trade sentiment roiling both parties.

For a day, however, President Obama could celebrate a potentially legacy-making achievement that links countries representing two-fifths of the global economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia. The trade initiative, dating to the start of his administration, is a centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s economic program to expand exports. It also stands as a capstone for his foreign policy “pivot” toward closer relations with fast-growing eastern Asia, after years of American preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa.

“When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment.”

The Pacific accord would phase out thousands of import tariffs as well as other barriers to international trade, like Japanese regulations that keep out some American-made autos and trucks. It also would establish uniform rules on corporations’ intellectual property, and open the Internet even in communist Vietnam.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative said the partnership eventually would end more than 18,000 tariffs that the participating countries have placed on United States exports, including autos, machinery, information technology and consumer goods, chemicals and agricultural products as varied as avocados from California or wheat, pork and beef from the Plains states.

The overall economic and political heft of the 12-nation group suggests that, as trade officials predicted, its agreement would be a model for future accords. It would overhaul the system of settling disputes between nations and foreign companies, while barring tobacco companies from using that process to block countries’ antismoking initiatives. It also would enforce higher standards of labor conditions and environmental protection, including wildlife-trafficking.

After five days here and sleepless nights of tense haggling, the agreement came together at 5 a.m. Monday, the trade officials said. When the 11 men and one woman (Magali Silva of Peru) filed onto a dais in a hotel ballroom several hours later to meet reporters, scores of aides burst into applause and some ministers joined in.

Mr. Froman read a joint statement that hailed a “historic agreement” that would promote growth, good jobs, higher living standards and good governance. But the ad-libbed comments of several ministers, including those from New Zealand and Canada who had been at the center of a final, heated standoff over dairy exports, spoke to a shared sense of accomplishment.

Ed Fast, the minister of Canada, where criticism of the trade accord has been prominent ahead of federal elections this month, conceded there had “very tough discussions.”

But, he added, “At the end of the day, here we are as 12 T.P.P. partners, having achieved something that at times many people didn’t think was achievable.”

For New Zealand, a small nation that is a major dairy exporter and would gain new access to markets in Canada and the United States, among other countries, the minister, Tim Groser, interjected, “Look, long after the details of this negotiation on things like tons of butter have been regarded as a footnote in history, the bigger picture of what we’ve achieved today will be what remains.”

“Other people will join this agreement,” he predicted. While Mr. Groser refused to specify countries that would join the Pacific trade partnership, South Korea and Thailand are among nations that have been named.

“We each have our own domestic processes to go through. We’ll be consulting closely with congressional leadership on the next steps and the timetable,” Mr. Froman said, adding, “We’re confident that people will see this as a very strong deal.”

Several potentially deal-breaking disputes had kept the 12 trade officials talking through the weekend and forced them repeatedly to reschedule the promised Sunday announcement of the deal into the evening and beyond. Final compromises covered commercial protections for drug makers’ advanced medicines, more open markets for dairy products and sugar, and a slow phaseout — over two to three decades — of the tariffs on Japan’s autos sold in North America.

Yet the trade agreement almost certainly will encounter stiff opposition.

Its full 30-chapter text will not be available for perhaps a month, but labor unions, environmentalists and liberal activists are poised to argue that the agreement favors big business over workers and environmental protection. Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the Pacific trade accord as “a bad deal,” injecting conservative populism into the debate and emboldening some congressional Republicans who fear for local interests like sugar and rice, and many conservatives who oppose Mr. Obama at every turn.

While many opponents say the trade pact will kill jobs or send them overseas, the administration contends that the United States has more to gain from freer trade with the Pacific nations. Eighty percent of those nations’ exports to the United States are already duty-free, officials say, while American products face assorted barriers in those countries that would end.

Also, the administration contends that increased United States sales abroad would create jobs in export industries, which generally pay more than jobs in domestic-only businesses.

The parties to the accord also include Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

The accord for the first time would require state-owned businesses like those in Vietnam and Malaysia to comply with commercial trade rules and labor and environmental standards. Mr. Froman called the labor and environmental rules the strongest ever in a trade agreement and a model for future pacts, although some environmental groups and most unions remained implacably opposed. The worker standards commit all parties to the International Labor Organization’s principles for collective bargaining, a minimum wage and safe workplaces, and against child labor, forced labor and excessive hours.

Unions and human rights groups have been skeptical at best that Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei will improve labor conditions, or that Malaysia will stop human trafficking of poor workers from Myanmar and Southeast Asia. The United States reached separate agreements with the three nations on enforcing labor standards, which would allow American tariffs to be restored if a nation is found in violation after a dispute-settlement process.

On the environment, the accord has provisions against wildlife-trafficking, illegal or unsustainable logging and fishing, and protections for a range of marine species and animals including elephants and rhinoceroses.

For the first time in a trade agreement there are provisions to help small businesses without the resources of big corporations to deal with trade barriers and red tape. A committee would be created to assist smaller companies.

The agreement also would overhaul special tribunals that handle trade disputes between businesses and participating nations. The changes, which also are expected to set a precedent for future trade pacts, respond to widespread criticisms that the Investor-State Dispute Settlement panels favor businesses and interfere with nations’ efforts to pass rules safeguarding public health and safety.

Among new provisions, a code of conduct would govern lawyers selected for arbitration panels. And tobacco companies would be excluded, to end the practice of using the panels to sue countries that pass antismoking laws. On Sunday, Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, hailed the provision as “historic.”

In a concession likely to be problematic with leading Republicans, the United States agreed that brand-name pharmaceutical companies would have a period shorter than the current 12 years to keep secret their data on producing so-called biologics, which are advanced medicines made from living organisms. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over trade, has threatened to withdraw his support for the accord if United States negotiators agree to loosening pharmaceutical industry protections against American law.

But arrayed against the United States, which said the protection was a necessary incentive for drug makers to innovate, were virtually every other country at the table, led by Australia. The generic drug industry and nonprofit health groups also strenuously opposed the United States’ position, pressing for access to the data within five years to speed lower-priced “biosimilars” to market. The compromise is a hybrid that protects companies’ data for five years to eight years.

5天談判 TPP 12國達成實質協議

經歷數十回合以及在美國亞特蘭大五天的談判，美國、日本和另外十個環太平洋國家五日終能就「跨太平洋夥伴協定」（TPP）達成歷史性的實質協議，它將是新一代的最大自由貿易協定，經濟規模占全球近四成。

美國貿易代表傅洛曼等十二國代表五日在亞特蘭大舉行的聯合記者會，宣布TPP達成協議，現場立刻響起如雷掌聲與歡呼聲。

與會國家於TPP談判中，同意降低商品、服務的貿易壁壘與制定商業規定。

對美國而言，新協議將為美國開啟在日本和加拿大的農業市場、強化智財權規定、協助藥廠和科技公司獲利，且將建立緊密結合的超大經濟集團，挑戰大陸在太平洋地區的影響力。美國總統歐巴馬堅信，TPP可望刺激美國經濟成長，提升產業競爭力，協助美國與志同道合的太平洋國家相結合。

對日本而言，該國可望從擴大出口汽車與進口食品降價等受惠，但可能因稻米零關稅以及牛肉和豬肉調降關稅等部分開放措施，在農業蒙受打擊。

十二國談判代表就原廠藥專利權期限、汽車裝配規定、乳製品三大棘手難題敲定協議後，TPP協議終能拍板定案。

2008年美國宣布加入TPP談判，日本則在2013年才加入，而一些政治敏感議題，包括美日汽車業談判等，一再成為協議障礙。談判進入尾聲仍談不攏的是美國與澳洲的生技原廠藥專利權之爭。美國要求專利藥能有十二年智財權，澳洲堅持八年，兩國最後達成複雜的折衷協議，提供至少五年，長則八年的專利權。

另一個最後關頭達成的協議，是加拿大與日本終於首肯進一步開放乳製品市場，准許美國乳製品進入，而紐西蘭也成功說服美國接受更多他們的乳品。

TPP仍有待在美國國會過關，由於美國大選將屆，TPP能否過關，仍在未定之天。一旦過關，TPP將為美國有效擴大廿年前簽署的北美自由貿易協議，將日本、澳洲、智利、秘魯和數個東南亞國家均涵蓋在內。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/business/trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal-is-reached.html

Video：The United States trade representative, Michael Froman, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000003958236/world-leaders-react-to-trade-agreement.html

2015-10-06．聯合報．A4．要聞．編譯王麗娟