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 Japanese officials will visit Washington next week in a bid to
break a deadlock over tariffs on farm and industrial products, which
is drawing out plans to conclude a wider free trade agreement among
12 Pacific Rim nations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The United States had hoped to wrap up the deal last year, but
ministerial-level talks in Singapore last month ended with many
issues still on the table, most notably Japan's protection of its
farm sector.
U.S. Acting Deputy Trade Representative Wendy Cutler said Japan was
moving very slowly, despite a commitment to work towards a
comprehensive and high-standard agreement when it joined the TPP
talks last year.
"We and other TPP countries ... have reminded Japan what it signed
up for, and what all the TPP countries signed up for, when it joined
the TPP. We've made limited progress on agriculture with Japan to
date, big gaps remain, but we are engaging with them," she told the
Governor's Conference on Agricultural Trade in Richmond, Virgina.
"We continue to look to Japan to provide meaningful market access
for our agricultural exports in a range of sectors."
Japan is keen to protect sensitive products such as beef, rice,
sugar and dairy, while U.S. carmakers are concerned about increased
competition from Japanese competitors if there is more open auto
trade.
Meanwhile, a trade deal close to conclusion between Japan and
Australia, another TPP partner, posed another risk to U.S. farm
exporters, Cutler said.
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That deal could give Australia "a leg-up with respect to many of our
agriculture exports to Japan," Cutler said.
"Given Australia's emphasis on agriculture I would assume that they
would be getting preferential market access to Japan and those
preferences will come into effect before the TPP can come into
effect."
Other countries participating in the TPP talks include Canada,
Mexico, Malaysia and Vietnam, and U.S. Trade Representative Michael
Froman said there had already been important steps forward with some
countries.
"We've made great progress in Vietnam, for example, and Malaysia,
for example," he told local radio, according to a transcript
supplied by his office.
"These are countries that have 20 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent
tariffs on our agricultural products, so to be able to chart out a
course where those tariffs will be eliminated, creates real
opportunities for American farmers and ranchers and growers."
(Reporting by Krista Hughes; editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
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