Obama administration suspends Pacific trade deal vote effort

Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has suspended its efforts to win congressional approval for his Asian free-trade deal before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, saying on Friday that TPP’s fate was up to Trump and Republican lawmakers.

Administration officials also said Obama would try to explain the situation to leaders of the 11 other countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact this week when he attends a regional summit in Peru.

Obama’s cabinet secretaries and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office had been lobbying lawmakers for months to pass the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in the post-election, lame-duck session of Congress. However, Trump’s stunning election victory that sends him to the White House in January and retains Republican majorities in Congress has stymied those plans.

“We have worked closely with Congress to resolve outstanding issues and are ready to move forward, but this is a legislative process and it’s up to congressional leaders as to whether and when this moves forward,” USTR spokesman Matt McAlvanah said in a statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement the morning after Donald Trump was elected as the next U.S. president in Washington, U.S., 9 November, 2016 - REUTERS

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not take up TPP in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration and said its fate was now up to Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan had earlier said he would not proceed with a lame-duck vote.

Trump made his opposition to the TPP a centre piece of his campaign, calling it a “disaster” and “a rape of our country” that would send more jobs overseas. His anti-free-trade message and pledges to stem the tide of imported goods from China and Mexico won him massive support among blue-collar workers in the industrial heartland states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, helping to swing the election his way.

Trump has said he will scrap TPP, renegotiate the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement and adopt a much tougher trade stance with China.

The TPP agreement, negotiated for more than five years and signed in October 2015, was aimed at reducing trade barriers erected by some of the fastest growing economies in Asia and boosting ties with U.S. allies in the region in the face of China’s rising influence.

White House Deputy National Security Advisor Wally Adeyemo told reporters on Friday that Obama will tell TPP member countries at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that the United States will remain engaged in Asia, and that it recognises the benefits of trade and such deals still make sense.

“In terms of the TPP agreement itself, Leader McConnell has spoken to that and it’s something that he’s going to work with the President-elect to figure out where they go in terms of trade agreements in the future,” Adeyemo said. “But we continue to think that these types of deals make sense, simply because countries like China are not going to stop working on regional agreements.”

Vietnam says economy will still thrive even if TPP tanks

Reuters: Vietnam will stay competitive and its economy will still thrive if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal collapses, its Trade Minister said, as doubts hang over the future of a pact that was core to the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia.

Vietnam’s manufacturing and exports-led economy is widely regarded as the biggest potential beneficiary of the TPP, but the deal now looks on the rocks following the presidential election win of Republican Donald Trump, who during campaigning took a protectionist stance on a deal he called a disaster and killer blow for American jobs.

“It’s still very early to predict the future of TPP, but regardless, we are always ready for integration, not just because of TPP, but because it is a requirement and also a motivation of development,” Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh was quoted saying by the Government news website on Friday.

“If TPP is implemented smoothly, our economic opportunities and competitive sectors like textiles, seafood and shoes will definitely benefit ... but if not we still have world markets; these sectors will still be competitive,” Tuan Anh said.

Vietnam has been Southeast Asia’s free-trade trailblazer, pursuing tariff-slashing deals with its biggest markets and sources of investment, including South Korea and the European Union, as well as existing agreements via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, such as an ASEAN-China FTA. If passed, the TPP, dubbed a mega-regional accord, would cover 40 percent of the global economy and create a trade zone worth about $ 28 trillion among 12 countries that include the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Mexico.

The deal looked set to sail through legislatures when it was concluded last year, but the run-up to the U.S. presidential election put ratification on ice in Washington and prompted other countries to put their legislative approvals on hold too.

Vietnam’s leadership has congratulated Trump but experts believe the ruling Communist Party would have preferred a Hillary Clinton victory because of her initial support for TPP.

The Obama administration saw TPP as a means of keeping China’s economic power in check. China is not among the members and has proposed its own parallel deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), of which Vietnam will be a part.

Vietnam has been receiving record foreign investment and expansion by firms into the country, often as a cheaper alternative to China, buoyed by the prospect of a cost-cutting TPP.