Getty Deal close on landmark trade pact

ATLANTA — Negotiators from the U.S., Japan and 10 Pacific-Rim nations appeared close late Sunday afternoon to cinching a landmark trade deal, setting the stage for President Barack Obama to send the deal to a divided Congress early next year.

Almost six years in the making, the deal would tear down trade barriers and establish rules in areas like labor, the environment and e-commerce for countries that produce 40 percent of the world’s economic output, from giants like the U.S. and Japan to developing nations like Peru, Malaysia and Vietnam.


The TPP is key to Obama’s “pivot” to Asia, aimed at anchoring the United States in a region increasingly dominated by China.

Trade ministers stayed three days past their expected departure to continue the final, difficult talks on auto, dairy and drug protections— knotty issues that will likely shape the votes in Congress, as well as in the legislatures of other nations.

Officials met through the night to hash out a compromise on one of the biggest obstacles to an agreement -- the length of monopoly protections for biologic medicines, a new class of live-saving drugs made from from living organisms.

The United States initially pushed to give drug makers 12 years of protection, the same as they get under U.S. law. But they ran into stiff opposition from Australia and five other countries who worried that would bust their health care budgets and keep the medicines out of reach for poorer patients by delaying the introduction of cheaper generic versions.

A compromise worked out by the United States and Australia settled on five years of protection, but provided the possibility of longer monopolies through two different options provided to countries.

Meanwhile, dairy producers nervously awaited the outcome of final market-access talks involving the United States, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. U.S. producers fear being required to open their market to more imports from New Zealand than they gain in exports to Canada and Japan

Business groups have pushed for comprehensive tariff cuts and strict intellectual property protections.

The administration is banking that the overall economic heft and geostrategic importance of the agreement will overcome concerns in Congress about individual provisions of the pact. Indeed, many farmers and businesses could benefit greatly from the agreement, especially in markets like Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam, where they now face significant trade barriers.

“Whether you’re an orange grower in Florida, a rancher in Nebraska or a boat builder in Washington state, TPP will include cuts to trade barriers, like tariffs” that currently block exports, an Obama administration official said.

The agreement would throw another variable into the volatile 2016 presidential election campaign, with Republican front-runner Donald Trump criticizing the pact before it was even complete and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton adopting a wait-and-see approach on a major geopolitical play she touted as Obama’s secretary of state.

As U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and his team pushed for the final deal, senior members of Congress grumbled that they weren’t being kept up to date about developments on key issues. “We expect you to intensify these consultations and coordination immediately,” the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee said in a letter to Froman on Wednesday.

U.S. trade officials, however, bristled at the suggestion they haven’t kept Congress informed. Froman has met with 100 members since a previous TPP ministerial meeting in Maui in late July, including with the Senate and House advisory groups on negotiations, they said.

The AFL-CIO labor federation and many environmental groups lined up behind congressional Democrats in the unsuccessful attempt to defeat the fast track trade bill. Still, the administration hopes what it describes as groundbreaking labor and environmental provisions will soften the opposition if not completely eliminate it.

“TPP will include the most robust enforceable environment commitments of any trade agreement, and will allow us to address pressing issues like wildlife trafficking, illegal logging and illegal fishing,” an administration official said. “TPP will put American workers first by including the strongest enforceable labor standards of any trade agreement in history, including in areas like child labor and forced labor and wages.”