US Secretary of State John Kerry refused to call last rites on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) yesterday, expressing the hope that US president-elect Donald Trump would drop his opposition to the contentious free-trade deal.
The TPP became a hot-button issue during the US election campaign, with critics including Trump saying it would cost US jobs.
Kerry said international trade was critical to US interests and the TPP could help grow the economy.
“I think as people examine it and begin to get beyond the campaign and begin to dig into it, my hope is it can summon the support that it needs,” he told reporters during a trip to New Zealand.
The TPP includes a dozen Asia-Pacific nations that together account for 40 percent of the global economy.
They are the US, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
It has been signed but is yet to be ratified by lawmakers in the US.
Kerry said he and US President Barack Obama remained “deeply committed” to the deal but would not try to push it through in the so-called “lame duck” legislative session before Trump takes over.
“The fact that it may not be taken up in the lame duck session isn’t indicative of where the country may go, that’s for sure,” he said. “I believe there’ll be a robust debate about it and there’s enough benefit in it for everybody that ultimately people will come to see this as a different kind of agreement.”
Kerry also denied that the TPP was intended to create an economic bulwark against China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific.
“It’s not about China,” he said. “The United States welcomes the peaceful rise of a great nation like China, we’ve said that directly to [Chinese] President Xi Jinping (習近平)... We’re not looking for competition or conflict, we’re looking for cooperation.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last