A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday said Japan’s refusal to drop all barriers to farm imports under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was unacceptable and urged the US administration to cut Japan and Canada out of the talks if they did not give ground.
In a letter to US President Barack Obama, 140 members of the US House of Representatives, or nearly one-third of the chamber, expressed “deep concern” about the state of agricultural market negotiations in the TPP, which involves 12 countries from the Americas and Asia.
Japan, which is keen to protect sensitive sectors such as beef, rice and pork, had made an “unprecedented and objectionable” offer exempting numerous products from tariff elimination, the letter said.
“We urge you to hold Japan and Canada to the same high standards as other TPP partners. Otherwise, Congressional support for a final TPP agreement will be jeopardized,” the letter said. “Indeed, we urge you to pursue the TPP negotiations without any country, including Japan, Canada, or others, that proves unwilling to open its market in accordance with these high standards.”
The letter was signed by senior members of the US House of Representatives committee with jurisdiction over trade, including Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and Subcommittee on Trade chair Devin Nunes, both Republicans, and the subcommittee’s top Democrat, Charles Rangel.
Lobby groups for the agricultural industry have already threatened to oppose the TPP, which is key to the Obama administration’s foreign policy in Asia, if they do not get better access to Japanese and Canadian markets.
Pork farmers said the congressional show of support was welcome, saying Japan was the fourth-biggest market for US farm exports, and Canada was the second.
Japan has said it would not agree to abolish all tariffs on wheat, rice, dairy, sugar, wheat, beef and pork. US Trade Representative Michael Froman said after the last ministerial TPP meeting that the US was pressing for tariffs to be eliminated “to the maximum extent possible.”
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