U.S. Ag Groups Put Forward Ideas for TPP Trade Agreement

Aug 28, 2013

U.S. Ag Groups Put Forward Ideas for TPP Trade Agreement

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

A coalition of 37 food and farm groups in the United States have outlined their key ideas for what they would like to see in the Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.

The group listed seven principles which they say must be achieved in order to fulfill a high-quality trade agreement:

• Include all aspects of trade including – agriculture, goods and services, digital trade, competition policy and intellectual property;
• Don’t include exclusions on certain products or sectors. The group says exclusions would limit opportunities for member countries to spur jobs and economic growth;
• Phase out tariff and market barriers – with transition periods to have defined deadlines;
• Include consequences on sanitary-phytosanitary (SPS) issues;
• Provide a “Rapid Response Mechanism” to manage issues with perishable shipments such as agricultural products;
• Add an enforcement mechanism to enforce trade obligations beyond World Trade Organization consequences;
• All elements of negotiation must be included in one package, not on an individual basis

The 19th round of negotiations wrap up this week with - United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

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