Author: Deborah Elms, RSIS

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiro Noda has finally announced that his country will seek to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.

His government was poised to enter the talks earlier in the year, but the decision was postponed in the wake of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster — and even Noda’s announcement this week was delayed multiple times as he tried to shore up support within his own party. Read more…

Author: Deborah Elms, NTU

In the run up to the sixth round negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, I argued that this was the moment when the proverbial ‘rubber would meet the road’. Officials had to start outlining specific bargains in trade rather than talking in generalities. What happened at the Singapore meetings?

For most of the first year of negotiations between the members, officials were free to discuss the high quality, 21st century nature of this new agreement. Read more…

Author: Deborah K. Elms, NTU

Trade officials across nine countries will meet in Singapore from 28 March 2011 for the latest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

This is the sixth time officials have met for the TPP — pitched as a ‘21st century, high-quality’ agreement — with the goal of completing the agreement by the November APEC meeting in Honolulu. Read more…

Author: Deborah Elms, Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade & Negotiations, Singapore

The ambiguity in U.S. President Barack Obama’s November 13th statement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks mirrors the somewhat torturous path in American trade policy to date on this topic. In his speech in Tokyo, President Obama said, ‘The United States will also be engaging with the Trans-Pacific partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.’

Listeners in the audience could be forgiven for confusion. Was the United States in or out? What did the President mean by ‘engage’?

Read more…