U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Wednesday (July 1) made clear he does not view the lack of a bilateral market access deal with Japan as an obstacle to making progress on the other outstanding issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which he identified as those relating to agricultural market access with Canada, intellectual property (IP), investment and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
[ July 2, 2015 | Inside U.S. Trade ]
“I think we’ve made good progress with Japan over the last year and a half,” he said at an event organized by Politico. “I don’t really see that as an obstacle to other progress at the moment. I think all the other countries recognize that even though we may not be finished with Japan, we’ve made quite good progress.”
“There are other issues I think that we’re working on, for example, Canada market access in the agricultural area remains a very important outstanding issue. And then there are certain rules issues, whether it’s intellectual property rights, or investment-related issues, some state-owned enterprise issues that we’re working on as well,” he said.
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