Crs Report for Congress

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional free trade agreement (FTA) being negotiated among the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. U.S. negotiators and others describe and envision the TPP as a “comprehensive and high-standard” FTA, presumably because they hope it will liberalize trade in nearly all goods and services and include commitments beyond those currently established in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The broad outline of an agreement was announced on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministerial in November 2011 in Honolulu, HI. If implemented, the TPP potentially could eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and investment among the parties and could serve as a template for a future trade pact among APEC members and potentially other countries. Congress has a direct interest in the negotiations, both through influencing U.S. negotiating positions with the executive branch, and by passing legislation to implement any resulting agreement. The next round of negotiations will take place in Auckland, New Zealand, between December 3 and 11, 2012. In Hawaii, the leaders of Canada, Japan, and Mexico also announced that they would seek consultations with partner countries with a view towards joining the negotiations. Canada and Mexico subsequently were welcomed to join the negotiations in June 2012 and became formal members in October 2012. Japan and the TPP partners are conducting bilateral consultations on its possible entrance as well. In addition, Thailand formally expressed its interest in joining the negotiations during President Obama’s trip to the country in November 2012.