TPP in the spotlight for Lee visit Presented by Semiconductor Industry Association

With help from Adam Behsudi, Matt Korade and Doug Palmer

TPP IN THE SPOTLIGHT FOR LEE VISIT: Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit the White House this week, giving President Barack Obama an opportunity to restate his case that the TPP is too important to the country’s leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region to delay, an administrative official said.


One of Obama’s primary goals when Lee arrives for a state dinner Tuesday will be “lifting up the benefits” of TPP, Daniel Kritenbrink, top Asia policy adviser at the National Security Council, told Reuters on Friday.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S.-ASEAN Business Council said they will host the prime minister at 6:30 p.m. for a “keynote address and a conversation” on Singapore’s top economic and trade priorities as well as TPP’s importance.

Lee’s visit comes as the Obama administration continues to urge Congress to consider the geostrategic importance of approving the trade deal with Singapore and 10 other Pacific Rim countries, despite opposition to the pact from both U.S. presidential candidates. GOP leaders in Congress have expressed concerns about provisions in the deal that would exempt the tobacco industry from investor-state dispute settlement procedures and limit intellectual property protections for biologic drugs.

IT’S MONDAY, AUG. 1! Welcome to Morning Trade and to August, in which two of your three hosts celebrate birthdays — as does USTR Michael Froman. Want to talk trade news? You know where to find me: [email protected] or @mmcassella.

COMMERCE BUSTS OUT STEEL DATA: The Commerce Department is set to unveil another tool in the fight against the flood of steel goods that has been causing a glut in the world market. The department’s “Global Steel Trade Monitor” report, being released this morning, will begin to document trade flows of the world’s top 20 steel importing and exporting countries. The report will inform a monitoring program that will be up and running by 2017. Reports on the 10 next-largest steel importing and exporting countries will be released in the coming months, Commerce said in a press release.

Today’s report will provide a broad set of data on the steel trade, allowing the industry to compare markets and evaluate trends. Read it here.

Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker will be rolling up her sleeves at a Cleveland steel plant today when she visits an ArcelorMittal production line with Sen. Sherrod Brown. After her tour, Pritzker will participate in a roundtable where she will hear from steel company representatives and workers about the impact of the global steel crisis.

FROMAN TO VISIT VIETNAM THIS WEEK: Ahead of the ASEAN trade ministers meeting on Friday, Froman is headed to Vietnam to hold talks with his counterparts in Hanoi, the USTR said. The trip comes as prospects for congressional approval of the TPP look increasingly in doubt.

During the mid-week visit, Froman will have a chance to brief Vietnamese officials on the administration’s plans for winning approval of the pact before he leaves office in January and discuss concerns over how Hanoi would implement the pact.

Tami Overby, senior vice president for Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Pro Trade’s Doug Palmer last week that she was "hearing rumblings of countries slowing down reform" because of their concern that the U.S. Congress might not pass the TPP this year. After Hanoi, Froman will head to Vientiane, Laos, for the annual ASEAN ministers meeting, which includes other TPP partners, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.

LANDING ZONE SETTLED IN ENVIRONMENTAL PACT: The 17 WTO members involved in an environmental tariff-elimination agreement settled on applying the cuts to more than 300 products during the 15th round of negotiations last week. The development sends the signal that the deal can be wrapped up before the end of the year, as members are hoping, a Geneva official said.

The members also tentatively agreed on dates for a series of meetings on the deal before the end of the year, including one in December, when they hope talks will wrap up.

BUSINESS GROUPS HOLD OUT HOPE FOR TPP: Leading TPP supporters in the business, agriculture and manufacturing communities say they remain optimistic about the deal’s chances of approval despite the mounting negativity surrounding it coming from both sides of the political aisle. Supporters are doing all they can to continue to try to win congressional votes for the deal, including during the summer recess. Their efforts range from inviting lawmakers out for factory visits and talking to them while they attend county fairs to placing op-eds in regional newspapers. And they’re confident all this will pay off.

“When you see trade, when it’s just a sign being waved on a convention floor ... that’s one thing,” Kevin Madden, a strategist working with the Trade Benefits America Coalition, told yours truly. But when it’s “somebody who has a small- or medium-size enterprise in your local economy, who is directly responsible for the employment of people whose jobs are tied to exporting ... that has an impact on lawmakers,” he said. “And that’s important.”

Back-to-back party conventions magnified loud anti-TPP voices that don’t understand all the facts, supporters say. They point to opinion polls showing that a majority of Americans do support free trade and say that in the end lawmakers will vote in the interests of their districts rather than follow the positions of those at the top of the ticket.

“This is not any kind of freak-out moment,” said John Michael Gonzalez, a Democratic lobbyist and strategist who works on trade. “We’ve been here before. And I know how this story ends.” Read the full story here.

WHITE HOUSE HOPES ON TPP STILL HIGH: Despite all the trade-bashing at the Democratic convention last week, Obama is singing the same tune as the business community and pushing for the deal to be wrapped up this year, a White House spokesman said Friday. At a daily press briefing, deputy White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that the president is “acutely aware” of the political challenges surrounding the trade deal but was nonetheless focused on winning support for it from members of Congress of both parties.

Asked if the White House will be pushing for a lame-duck vote despite Hillary Clinton’s disapproval of the deal, Schultz responded: “The President absolutely believes this deal should pass this year.”

EU DEMANDS IMPROVEMENTS TO U.S. TISA OFFER: A leaked document obtained by POLITICO shows that the EU has a list of complaints about the United States’ market access offer in the Trade in Services Agreement, throwing into question whether the deal can be concluded by the end of the year, as the U.S. hopes.

In the document, dated to June, the EU is accusing the U.S. of not meeting the level of liberalization of past trade deals or even some of its commitments in the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services. On the movement of people, the EU is demanding that the U.S. make commitments at least to the level of the GATS. It also wants the U.S. to remove U.S. citizenship requirements that many states have for the incorporation of insurance companies or membership on their boards of directors.

In financial services, the EU wants Washington to drop its reservations about allowing foreign firms to provide housing finance products, and in telecommunications, Brussels wants the U.S. to remove equity caps and make market access commitments on mobile, satellite and other basic telecom services.

While Brussels has drawn fire over the limitations of its market access offer in TISA negotiations, the document shows the EU has some complaints of its own. The 23 participants involved in the talks are scheduled to exchange revised offers by October.

FINALLY, A TRADE JOKE! Former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab sounded a little glum during a call on Friday to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the United Kingdom arising from its decision to the leave the European Union, and mused briefly on the trade discourse in the U.S. presidential campaign. But she leavened the mood by telling an old story — though if you’re like our Doug Palmer, you might have to look it up to get the joke.

“For those of us in ... the field of trade policy, trade negotiations, trade politics, this is not a particularly happy time virtually anywhere in the world,” Schwab said during the call. “Certainly if you’re following U.S. trade politics, this is not the happiest of moments. But I recall an old joke that Ronald Reagan used to tell, [although] the story goes back much farther than that. The punch line is ‘there must be a pony in there somewhere.’ If you don’t know the story, feel free to Google it, but I’m going to try to end on an upbeat note.”

INTERNATIONAL OVERNIGHT

— Australia has moved negotiating a free trade deal with Indonesia to the top of its to-do list amid uncertainty over whether the U.S. will approve TPP, the Australian Financial Review reports.

— Sen. Lindsey Graham says trade agreements would give South Carolina’s auto industry a boost, the Charleston Post and Courier reports.

— Hong Kong’s position as a “super-connector” to global trade opens the city up to becoming a fundraising platform for money laundering and terrorist activity, the South China Morning Post reports.

— Argentina and Mexico have agreed to deepen commercial ties, setting the groundwork for a bilateral free trade agreement, Reuters reports.

THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING TRADE! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop the team a line: [email protected] and @ABehsudi; [email protected] and @mmcassella; [email protected] and @tradereporter; [email protected] and @mjkorade; and [email protected] and @JsonHuffman. You can also follow @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Trade.

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