If you’re feeling like the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn’t have much chance of passing this year, you’re not alone. During a lunchtime discussion of foreign policy and trade experts, Commerce Undersecretary for International Trade Stefan Selig was practically the only person who was optimistic that the deal could go through this year, our Doug Palmer reports from New York.
[Victoria Guida| April 6, 2016 |Politico]
“Let me just go around the room,” David Rothkopf, CEO and editor of Foreign Policy magazine, said at the event, which was hosted in conjunction with financial services giant HSBC. “Does anyone here think that TPP will pass before the end of this administration?”
“I get fired if I don’t raise my hand,” Selig joked, then explained that he believed supporters in both parties would be motivated to work together to pass the agreement, potentially in the lame-duck session, out of fear of it not getting done.
“I think it will be very tough [to pass it this year] because the American public has been convinced that free trade is bad,” former Citigroup executive William Rhodes said. “You have to have a better political environment.”
