Japan in Depth / Japan-U.S. discord throws wrench in TPP talks

Miyuki Yoshioka/The Yomiuri Shimbun

Cabinet Office Senior Vice Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, second from left, talks at a press conference as U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, second from right, listens after the TPP ministerial meeting in Singapore.

Soichiro Kuboniwa and Kunihiko Yasue / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers SINGAPORE—The deadline for an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks was missed, but U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman was upbeat.
He described the four-day meeting in Singapore as “productive” and expressed satisfaction with the result of the talks on the proposed trade deal among 12 participating nations.
Froman’s comments masked the fact that the ministerial talks failed to reach the initial goal of reaching a substantive agreement by the end of this year. Indeed, the participants were unable to even reach a partial accomplishment, and only agreed to meet again next month for more talks. The possibility of the talks stalling remains.
A key factor behind this outcome was the discord in negotiations between the United States and Japan. The United States stuck rigidly to its demand for a high level of free trade, without giving consideration to each nation’s internal conditions. It did not compromise on any concession proposals until the end of the talks.

On Saturday, the first day of the talks, Froman approached Yasutoshi Nishimura, Cabinet Office senior vice minister and head of Japan’s negotiation team, between the plenary meeting, and made requests that would benefit the U.S. side.
During this unplanned discussion, Froman urged Nishimura again for the complete removal of tariffs.
The unwillingness for Washington to offer any compromise stems from the hard-line stance of the U.S. Congress. The administration of President Barack Obama needs to acquire the president’s trade promotion authority from Congress, with which the president can request Congress to approve trade agreements without any amendment.
If the agreements are not favorable to the United States, Congress may not agree to provide this authority.
Obama was absent from the TPP summit meeting in Indonesia in October due to the U.S. government shutdown, which broke the momentum toward reaching a final agreement by year-end.
In a document he sent to the USTR before the meeting, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who supports the TPP, suggested that nations that do not meet standards sought by the United States should be eliminated from the talks.
With midterm elections in autumn next year approaching, the U.S. Congress may make increasingly stronger moves toward protectionism as lawmakers seek to draw support from more voters. As a result, a hard line on the issue has come to the fore in the U.S. Congress.
The United States’ unexpected high-handed manner affected Japan’s negotiation strategy, too.
Japan began studying whether there were items that could be made tariff-free among 586 products in “five important agricultural categories” such as rice and wheat, which were considered sacrosanct.
Japan also compiled measures to enhance the agricultural sector, including the abolition of the current rice production adjustment policy based on acreage reductions, with the aim of accelerating bilateral talks in case the United States made concessions.
In an 11th-hour official effort, Japan sounded out U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who visited Japan on Nov. 1 for preparatory meetings before the ministerial talks, on a tariff abolition plan.
This plan had not been previously proposed.
Japan apparently hopes Washington will compromise on a plan to boost the tariff-free ratio to around 95 percent if tariffs on some items in the five categories are scrapped.
However, Froman insisted all tariffs be abolished, forcing Japan to abandon playing its last card.
After talks with the United States, Akira Amari, state minister for economic and fiscal policy, said there was a line over which Japan could not concede even a centimeter.
However, Nishimura later changed the wording to “will not concede even a millimeter on what cannot be conceded.”
Koya Nishikawa, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party’s TPP committee, said in Singapore after the ministerial talks that Japan does not need to become flexible when its counterpart does not show flexibility.
Time has run out for the talks this year as both Japan and the United States will not give an inch.