NZ US Council Encouraged By Passage Of FTAs in US

NZ US Council Encouraged By Passage Of Ftas Through Us Congress

The NZ US Council is encouraged that the United States Congress has ratified free trade agreements with Korea, Panama and Colombia.

“These three FTAs were negotiated under the Bush Administration in 2006-07 and have waited all this time for ratification by Congress,” explained NZ US Council Executive Director Stephen Jacobi.

“While their ratification remained blocked by procedural wrangling and disagreements on substance there was inevitably scepticism in some quarters that the United States was serious about trade liberalisation. The agreement with Korea is the largest FTA negotiated since NAFTA. Ratification of these agreements shows that the United States is back in the business of leading efforts to bring down barriers to trade and investment.”

Mr Jacobi said that the passage of these agreements through Congress also had implications for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) currently under negotiation by nine partners including New Zealand and the United States.

“It has been clear that these agreements have held up progress in some aspects of TPP while the Administration worked out its negotiating mandate with Congress. Now that this hurdle has been overcome we can now look forward to a quickening pace in the TPP negotiations which are now the Obama Administration’s major trade negotiating initiative.”

Mr Jacobi said that the broad outlines of TPP were expected to be discussed at the forthcoming round of negotiations to be held in Lima later this month and clarified at the APEC Leaders’ Summit in Honolulu in November.

“TPP remains a work in progress but the Lima and Honolulu meetings should give us a better idea of how far we have come and what remains to be done by negotiators to finish TPP,” concluded Mr Jacobi.

Note: The ninth round of TPP negotiations is scheduled for Lima 19-28 October. APEC Leaders meet in Honolulu12-13 November.

ENDS

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