Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations Come to Screeching Halt
Negotiators of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) announced
Friday that they had failed to finalize the deal after several days of
talks in Hawaii.
Curtis Ellis of World Net Daily reports:
Negotiations stalled when national governments failed to accede to
corporatist demands to open their borders and allow “people, goods,
capital and information to flow freely through the zone,” as Japanese
Trade Minister Akira Amari described TPP’s goals at a news conference Friday evening.
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Striking a deal over how long to protect data used to develop biologic
drugs was described as the biggest source of frustration by a source
from a non-U.S. negotiating nation.
U.S. drug manufacturers want 12 years, but Australia wants five. A
compromise of seven or eight years is seen as a possible compromise.
“The US was on one side of the issue, while practically every other
country were on the other side,” the source told Associated Press.
Division between the U.S. and Japan over cars and New Zealand’s
reluctance to set terms on dairy also played a role in the halting of
finalization, reports ABC Australia.
