New Zealand regards her own trade diplomacy as the seed from which the full blown Trans-Pacific Partnership has grown. So, when New Zealand's Prime Minister,
John Key, publicly suggests that, as things are going, the final TPP agreement may not merit a New Zealand signature, one pays attention. It may not be a man-bites-dog story, but it is getting there.
New Zealand's trade minister,
Tim Groser, walked through the history of TPP for a Japanese audience last Friday. Speaking at the Nikkei Forum in Tokyo, Mr. Groser explained:
"TPP has deep roots. It started with a bilateral FTA between Singapore and NZ. We then invited Chile into the negotiation. The vision of the earlier Singapore-NZ FTA was to be a bridge to what we called 'P5', or 'Pacific Five'. For that, we needed a Latin American economy in the hope of capturing the interest of the United States. Eventually, Brunei asked to be included and we negotiated not P5, but P4 - four small APEC Economies. And then we waited."
He also explained that New Zealand "is the legal administrator, or 'Depository' of P4, [and] we continue to be the Administrator to TPP."
The more immediate history, the history of last week, may be more relevant here. On Monday and Tuesday, June 19 and 20, TPP negotiators met in Singapore, and apparently the results were not encouraging, at least not for New Zealand, which alone accounts "for close to 30 percent of dairy products traded globally."
New Zealand is counting on TPP to open up dairy markets in Japan, Canada, and the United States. If we are reading the press reports correctly, Prime Minister Key is concerned that, in the end, Japan in particular may not be willing to open its market for dairy products -- at least not in any meaningful way -- with potentially disappointing consequences for the larger dairy discussion. He expressed that concern in comments to reporters earlier today.