Cargo Business Newswire

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Top Story

Obama asks for "fast track" powers to advance trade deals

Citing China as a formidable trade rival, President Barack Obama asked Congress to grant the administration the "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals with Asia-Pacific and European countries and expedite them through Congress.

"I'm asking both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren't just free, but fair," said Obama in his State of the Union address.

The Obama administration is engaged in two ambitious and controversial trade negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with 28 members of the European Union.

The TPP would end tariffs among the U.S., Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, but would exclude China for now.

Photo credit: Larry Downing/Reuters

The trade promotion ("fast-track") authority allows the president to negotiate trade deals and then present them to Congress for up-or-down votes, with no amendments allowed.

For more of The New York Times story: sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com