Alan Wolff is Senior Counsel at Dentons, the world's largest law firm, and Chairman of the Board of the National Foreign Trade Council, NFTC. Next Wednesday, January 13, Mr. Wolff will testify on TPP before the U.S. International Trade Commission. That testimony, which is the source of today's quotes, is already available on the ITC's website.
In a moment, we will share a little more from Mr. Wolff's prepared statement, but first a bit of background on the hearing or rather hearings. On November 5,
President Obama notified Congress of his intent to enter into an agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, with eleven other countries. On the same day, the U.S. International Trade Commission received a letter from
Ambassador Froman. But there is no point in re-inventing the wheel, a Commission background note sums up the situation succinctly:
"As requested by USTR and as required by Section 105(c) of the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 [TPA], the Commission will submit to the President and Congress a report assessing the likely impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement on the U.S. economy as a whole and on specific industry sectors and the interests of U.S. consumers."
And they don't have a lot of time to do it. Their deadline is 105 days after the President enters the agreement. According to recent press reports, the TPP countries will all sign the agreement at a ceremony in New Zealand on February 4. By our reckoning, that suggests the ITC report is due on May 16, give or take a day or two.
Next week, the ITC process really gets going with three days of hearings on January 13, 14, and 15. Already the Commission's website lists some 137 documents filed in connection with this report or, more formally, Investigation No. 105-001. We expect to look at several of them over the next few weeks.
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The NFTC's support for TPP is strong but it is not unqualified. In his opening summary, Mr. Wolff urges Congress and the Administration to address a series of TPP related issues, including:
"...achieving a high standard of data exclusivity for biologics, avoiding product specific carve-outs for dispute settlement, exclusion of financial services from data flow rules, and trade and investment distortions that can be caused by currency manipulation."
The punch of his argument, however, seemed to us much more about the new ground broken in the TPP Agreement than its short comings. There are many areas of new ground. Here, with some quotes from Mr. Wolff's testimony, we will note just three:
Japan. "The very fact that TPP contains within it what is essentially a U.S.-Japan FTA is itself a remarkable achievement." Indeed. Almost as noteworthy is Mr. Wolff's observation that "Japan turned out to be perhaps America's best ally in new and enhanced rules in TPP."
Tariffs. "The 18,000 tariff reductions and ultimate elimination matter. ... As the United States already has a low average tariff [and] is largely an open market, the liberalization achieved is strongly in America's favor." And
State Owned Enterprises. "It is a substantial achievement of TPP that it created a first set of disciplines for SOEs that compete with private sector companies." According to Mr. Wolff, the role of SOEs is growing in the world not declining, and so the need for such discipline will only increase.
