Flawed TPP in danger of being floored by compromises: critics

Tokyo

SUPPORT is growing for a ministerial meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), according to Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry Akira Amari. But any agreement that emerges from the long-delayed negotiations could be be very different from that originally envisaged.

The original aim of the TPP was "to eliminate tariffs" but since Japan joined the negotiations in July 2013 that vision has "deteriorated", according to Kazuhito Yamashita, research director of the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo and an expert in agricultural policy.

Japan's push for exempting "sensitive" agricultural products including rice, wheat, beef and pork, dairy products and sugar from tariff eliminatio…