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Obama outlines pan-Pacific trade plan at Apec summit

Frolicking Dinosaurs

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US President Barack Obama has announced the broad outlines of a plan to create a trans-Pacific free trade zone at an annual regional summit in Hawaii.

"I'm confident we can get this done," Mr Obama said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) talks.

Nine Apec nations are involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but China has so far not expressed interest in joining the talks.

In all, 21 Apec countries account for about 44% of global trade. They also make up some 40% of the world's population....

The TPP currently includes Chile, New Zealand, Brunei and Singapore - all relatively small economies - with the US, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Peru negotiating to join. And Japan, the world's third largest economy, has now said it also wants to join the discussions.
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BBC News - Obama outlines pan-Pacific trade plan at Apec summit
 
This would be excellent, and if he could get it accomplished, would be a feather in the President's cap as well as a solid boon for the country.

Frankly, I'm kind of fully willing for China not to join.

but we need to get India on board.
 
Yeah, excluding China from this isn't a bad thing, creating all sorts of economic advantages for other nations in the regions, to use as leverage against China, particularly for human rights matter, can only be good.
 
The US, Australia, and India have a common Anglo-political heritage that should hopefully aid us in tying together a regional bloc to face off against a surging China. Mutually reinforcing that with a free trade zone is only good common sense.
 
This explains why this seemingly hardly newsworthy item is critically important to the future of world trade with the Asia region.

BBC News - Wen warns US on South China Sea dispute
The South China Sea contains some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, as well as oil and gas reserves.

China claims a huge U-shaped area of the sea - a claim that overlaps areas which Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei say belong to them.

China's increasingly assertive behaviour over its claim in recent months has alarmed several of its neighbors.
 
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If this actually pans out it will be the best economic news in many years. But I'll believe it when I see it. These things have a tendency to fall apart during negotiations, or to be held up in Congress even after they've been fast-tracked. An APEC free trade area would be fantastic. I'm very skeptical about its chances of becoming reality though; the fact that Japan is involved tends to greatly increase the risk of it all falling apart IMO. I'd rather get the free trade area with the other APEC countries so we at least have that, and then we can negotiate to have Japan join separately.
 
Do you think it would survive domestic union pressure? the FTA's with Colombia and South Korea died in the Democrat Senate over precisely that issue.
 
This would be excellent, and if he could get it accomplished, would be a feather in the President's cap as well as a solid boon for the country.

Frankly, I'm kind of fully willing for China not to join.

but we need to get India on board.

I don't think India is being considered at this point. Taiwan's government also wants in, but has indicated it doesn't think it will be ready until 2015 at the earliest...
 
The US, Australia, and India have a common Anglo-political heritage that should hopefully aid us in tying together a regional bloc to face off against a surging China. Mutually reinforcing that with a free trade zone is only good common sense.

As do New Zealand and the Philippines. Taiwan's political system is roughly modeled on that of the United States as well...
 
I thought the Senate RATIFIED the South Korea FTA. My understanding is that it is currently limbo in the South Korean legislature.

3 years later, once the need to do SOMEthing that would increase job production began to outweigh union concerns (and once those same unions were partially bought off with money for "retraining"), yes. but the SKorean FTA was brought up in 2008.
 
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