Trans-Pacific Partnership: trade officials don't know how it would work without US
|
Version 0 of 1. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not know how the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would work without the United States, despite the Turnbull government’s heavy promotion of the idea. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has spent the last few weeks pushing the idea of the 12-country TPP still going ahead, despite President Donald Trump’s antagonism towards the deal. Turnbull and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have discussed the possibility of other TPP member countries ratifying the deal quickly to pressure the US to stay on board. The trade minister, Steve Ciobo, met leaders from Japan, Canada, Mexico, Singapore and New Zealand last week in Switzerland to discuss ways to “take the TPP forward” without the US, given the deal was too important “not to do all we can to see [it] enter into force”, he said on Sunday. But freedom of information documents show the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFat) has not been asked to model how the TPP would affect Australia’s economy if the agreement went ahead without the US. Jason Clare, the shadow minister for trade, has filed two FOI requests seeking access to any modelling, but the department has told him no such modelling exists. The first FOI, on 28 November, was filed two weeks after Ciobo told the ABC’s Insiders program the TPP could not officially go ahead without the US but an 11-country TPP could go ahead “in theory”. The second FOI, on 10 January, was filed a week before Turnbull said he still held out hope the TPP was not dead. On both occasions DFat said no modelling had been commissioned. Clare said the government should not be promoting a potential amended TPP without knowing what impact it would have on Australia’s economy. “The government is now saying ‘plan B’ is an alternate agreement with the 11 other countries that were part of the TPP, however they no idea whether this is even worth doing,” he told Guardian Australia. “We have asked the government for economic modelling on the value to Australia of an agreement without the US but they haven’t bothered doing any. “If ‘plan B’ ever happens it would require independent economic evidence, another parliamentary inquiry and new legislation.” Ciobo was travelling overseas and could not be contacted for comment. According to the final chapter of the TPP, the trade agreement can only go ahead if at least six of its 12 original members have ratified the agreement, and if those six countries represent 85% of the combined GDP of all 12 countries. It means the deal cannot come into force if the US or Japan fail to ratify the agreement because, between them, they represent 79% of the GDP of all 12 original signatories. Without the US or Japan being involved there is no way for the remaining signatories to fulfil the 85% requirement. Ciobo told the ABC’s Insiders program in November the TPP could not officially go ahead if the US was not part of it. But he said the remaining 11 countries could go it alone “in theory” and there was enough merit in the trade deal to consider trying to do so. Shortly after Trump was sworn in as president on Friday, the White House website was updated to say his trade strategy “starts by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership”. |