Light at the end of the tunnel for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
The TPP will assure the US' 12 Asia-Pacific allies about its security, political and economic commitments to them amid China's rising assertiveness.
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TRADE ministers from a dozen countries in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific are in Hawaii for talks that could lead to the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal being settled on or before Friday. The proposed treaty is one of the most important free trade agreements since the North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in 1994.
This is not just because the 12 markets - the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam - encompass around 40 per cent of world's gross domestic product (GDP); in addition, TPP has an important rules-setting component and Obama administration officials have asserted that the treaty will enable Washington - rather than Beijing - to write the "rules of the road" for important 21st-century economic issues, including intellectual property in the digital economy.
The key development in Hawaii this week that has enabled potential breakthrough after around five years of negotiations was the passage in late June in the US Congress of so-called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
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