US President Barack Obama’s administration has suspended its efforts to win congressional approval for his Asian free-trade deal before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office, saying on Friday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TTP) fate was up to Trump and Republican lawmakers.
Administration officials also said Obama would next week try to explain the situation to leaders of the 11 other countries in the pact when he attends a regional summit in Peru.
Obama’s Cabinet secretaries and the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) had been lobbying lawmakers for months to pass the 12-country TPP deal in the post-election, lame-duck session of US 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.
On Wednesday, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not take up the TPP in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration and said its fate was now up to Trump.
US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan had earlier said he would not proceed with a lame-duck vote.
Trump made his opposition to the TPP a centerpiece of his campaign, calling it a “disaster” and “a rape of our country” that would send more jobs overseas.
His message opposing free trade and pledges to stem the tide of imported goods from China and Mexico won him massive support among blue-collar workers in the industrial states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, helping to swing the election his way.
Trump has said he will scrap the 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 last year, was aimed at reducing trade barriers erected by some of the fastest growing economies in Asia and boosting ties with US allies in the region in the face of China’s rising influence.
White House Deputy National Security Adviser Wally Adeyemo on Friday told reporters that Obama will tell TPP member countries at the APEC summit that the US will remain engaged in Asia, and that it recognizes the benefits of trade and such deals still make sense.
“In terms of the TPP agreement itself, 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, 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,” Adeyamo said.
China, leading talks on a deal seen as an alternative to the TPP — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — this week said that the Pacific Rim area needs a free-trade deal as soon as possible and that it would seek support for one during the APEC summit.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS