The next step for the Trans Pacific Partnership is for the governments of the 12 Asia-Pacific nations to ratify the agreement.
Trade ministers stayed in Atlanta, keeping the negotiations going for five extra days to find common ground on contentious issues, including automobiles, beef & dairy and intellectual property.
Our U.S. correspondent Priscilla Huff reports:
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The repeated delays in finalizing the Trans Pacific Partnership
reportedly came down to cows
specifically, greater access to global markets for New Zealand dairy products.
But a few short hours after that final part of the agreement was inked,
Trade Ministers - including Tim Groser of New Zealand - were hailing the twelve nation deal as historic
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While the deal does comprise some 40 percent of global trade and economic output
There's one big Asian nation missing.
China is not part of TPP
But Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa Mohamed was careful to say, it's not too late for China to join free trade pact.
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Here in the United States, the big question is, will the U-S Congress actually approve TPP
U-S Trade Representative Michael Froman was heading straight from the completed talks in Atlanta back to Washington and upto Capitol Hill to begin briefing lawmakers and putting the agreement on the table for public comment.
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Some of that debate is already underway...
with presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle denouncing TPP
Republican Donald Trump calls it a bad deal
And politically progressive Democrat Bernie Sanders has said repeatedly,
he wants it voted down.
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It's a message repeated by America's labor unions
who worry TPP is bad for workers and manufacturing jobs are likely to be shipped to lower wage countries.
That said
the White House notes
TPP will eliminate tarriffs and other barriers on some 18,000 products
and expand export opportunities for Made in America products and thus...create more jobs.
Priscilla Huff, Washington
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