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Audio: Next Steps for Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Published: Oct 06, 2015



On Oct. 5, trade ministers from the 12 participating Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries – the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – announced a successful conclusion to their negotiations.

Thad Lively, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) senior vice president for trade access, congratulated U.S. trade officials for completing these extremely complex and difficult trade negotiations. He notes that because of existing trade agreements with several TPP participants, the largest potential market access gains for U.S. pork and beef are clearly in Japan and Vietnam – countries in which these products currently face high import duties. Lively also discusses the next steps for the TPP agreement, which include a review period for the full text and a ratification vote in Congress.

TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: Trade ministers from the 12 Trans Pacific Partnership countries have announced successful conclusion to their negotiations. Thad Lively, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) senior vice president for trade access, offers his thoughts on the announcement in this USMEF report.

Thad Lively: This is a big day for everyone who’s been involved in the process in our government and in the governments of the other 11 countries that are involved in this negotiation, and now this agreement. So it’s a very important step, and this is really one of the largest trade agreements that’s ever been completed, so I think it’s important to keep that in the front of our mind as we think about this and try to weigh its importance for agriculture and for the meat sector in particular. We already had Free Trade Agreements obviously with Mexico and Canada and several other countries in the Western Hemisphere, as well as Australia and a couple of other countries in southeast Asia, so the big prize here, I would say for the meat industry is in Japan, and then after that probably Vietnam. Those are two markets where we have historically faced very high duties. .

Joe Schuele: Next step for the TPP agreement will include a review period for the full text and a ratification vote in Congress.

Thad Lively: It is an incredibly detailed process, negotiating an agreement like this – not just the agricultural components, but all the other pieces, many of which really are new path-breaking agreements. So, the next step here is for all the countries to go through and make sure all the last-minute negotiations and back-and-forth that have gone on for the last week or so in Atlanta, that what comes out is an agreement that is consistent from one country’s idea of the text to the next. Here in the United States, of course, the next big step will be getting this deal approved by our Congress. That will be a very detailed, and as you can imagine, politically exciting process, as well.

Joe Schuele: For more on this and other trade issues, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Joe Schuele.