US President Barack Obama was yesterday to meet with a group of business and government leaders to discuss the economic and security benefits of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, the White House said.
The “discussion is an opportunity for the president to hear directly from a diverse coalition of experts and leaders in their fields on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership can benefit American workers and businesses and further our national security,” a White House spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday.
Obama has made the 12-nation free-trade deal the centerpiece of a diplomatic “pivot” to Asia, but the prospects for congressional approval have looked increasingly dim. Both major presidential candidates for the Nov. 8 election — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald Trump — oppose the agreement.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate will not vote on the pact this year, punting it to the next president, who is to take office in January next year.
The White House said businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Louisiana Governor Jon Bel Edwards, Ohio Governor and former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty were among those who would attend the meeting with Obama.
Obama said in a speech on the sidelines of a summit in Vientiane, Laos, on Sept. 6 that a failure to move ahead with the TPP would “call into question America’s leadership.”
Administration officials have argued a failure to approve the trade pact would cede ground to China in the region and allow it to increasingly set the terms of world trade.
Meanwhile, the EU and the US on Thursday called for “as much progress as possible” to be made toward sealing a massive trade deal at a fresh round of talks in New York next month.
The two sides issued the statement following a round of trade talks in Brussels clouded by suspicions in Europe that the deal would undercut the 28-nation bloc’s standards in key areas such as health and welfare.
EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstroem met in Brussels with US Trade Representative Michael Froman to “take stock of the ongoing negotiations” for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Malmstroem has previously admitted there would be no deal by the end of this year, as originally envisaged when the talks started in 2013.
“We had a good meeting where we reviewed the substantial progress being made and discussed next steps for moving forward,” the statement said.
“We have directed our teams to make as much progress as possible during the next round, scheduled for the week of Oct. 3 in New York,” it added.
French President Francois Hollande has said there would be no deal at least until after Obama steps down in January.
French Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Tourism and French Overseas Matthias Fekl on Wednesday said that the proposed agreement no longer enjoys political support in France, even if he conceded Paris could not block the talks.
The TTIP — which would create the world’s biggest free-trade market of 850 million consumers stretching from Hawaii to Lithuania — has become a hot potato as key elections approach in the US, France and Germany.
Additional reporting by AFP
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