Update on Salt Lake TPP Talks
Salt Lake TPP Talks End with Growing Pressure to Announce “Deal” at December TPP Ministerial, but No Resolution of Major Controversies
By Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
A week of intense TPP negotiations, marked with increasingly heavy-handed U.S. tactics, came to an end late Sunday night in Salt Lake City, Utah. Negotiators working on the 12 TPP chapters not yet completed were instructed to narrow disagreements to matters that the chief negotiators or trade ministers will decide. At least three chapters – those covering intellectual property, state owned enterprises and medicine-pricing formularies – did not reach this target. Talks on the controversial intellectual property chapter were extended and will continue for at least two more days. There was no discussion of disciplines to counter currency manipulation despite 230 House and 60 Senate GOP and Democrats demanding such terms.
In Salt Lake City, TPP chief negotiators prepared a long list of final trade-offs and decisions for trade ministers who will meet from December 7-10 in Singapore. Many TPP country governments are billing the Singapore Ministerial as the ‘end game’ of negotiations. The intensity of efforts at Salt Lake City demonstrated that the United States is desperate that its latest end-of-year deadline for TPP’s completion not be missed like three past deadlines.