U.S. negotiators joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks in 2008, and the Obama Administration earlier this year signaled its hope for a final agreement by year’s end.
“I think we have to believe that they can get it done,” says U.S. Meat Export Federation Chairman and Nebraska farmer Mark Jagels, above, “and if not, let’s get it done right after the first of the year, and get it done as quickly as possible.”
Jagels says a Trans-Pacific Partnership would improve relations with several current trading partners, but in his opinion, the real win for American farmers wasn’t even a possibility until March of this year, when Japan joined the negotiating table.
“Get the tariffs down and increase the quotas we can get into there,” says Jagels. “They want our product already: since February 1st we went to 30-month and under [beef product]. I mean, our exports have increased over 50% just in that time frame.”
Several developments last week have jeopardized the likelihood of TPP’s passage by year’s end. A working draft of the document’s intellectual property rights section was disseminated online by Internet whistle-blower WikiLeaks, and a bipartisan group of 173 House lawmakers wrote the President, informing him of their intent to block any attempt to regain trade promotion authority, which would allow the Executive branch to negotiates treaties on which Congress can only vote for or against, without amendment.
