Deal could take years to ratify, say experts
Like so many trade agreements, bilateral or multinational, the devil is in the details — and, just as often, those unknowns can eventually water down cross- border deals, or scuttle them altogether.
The Trans- Pacific Partnership is bound to face similar obstacles. Already, the 12- nation agreement — announced Monday after prolonged negotiations in Atlanta — is drawing both fire and favour from global trade watchers.
The TPP pact, the largest ever agreed to, will still limit access to Canada’s most coveted sectors — the auto industry, and dairy and poultry markets.
“It is going to be the new gold standard for global trade agreement,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday.
It will also be one of the big campaign issues — if not the biggest — in the run- up to the Oct. 19 federal election.
“The next Canadian government, whoever that might be, would be well within its rights to insist that key elements be revisited,” said Scott Sinclair, a trade expert with the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives.
Under the TPP pact, which still needs to go through legal hoops, Canada has agreed to a “limited” concession on its policy of supply managed dairy and poultry products — allowing more duty- free items into the country.
Along with Canada, TPP members are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
Who’s not in yet? Colombia, South Korea and Thailand. China, the world’s second- largest economy after the U. S., remains an outlier from TPP.
Once the current members sign off on the agreement, TPP will represents 40 per cent of the global economy.
The timeline for ratification of the deal could run from two years, as Harper maintains, to a whole lot longer — like six to eight years.
“I would say it’s rather thin gruel. The details are still pretty sketchy. And I think it raises as many questions as it does answers,” Sinclair said.
And given the current division of views, “I’m not convinced that in 10 years we’ll have this deal,” he said.
But Perrin Beatty, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government of the 1980s, predicts another scenario.
Monday’s agreement on TPP is “an economic win for Canada,” Beatty told reporters in Ottawa.
“Canadian exports of meat, grain oil seeds, seafood and wood will grow once producers no longer face the quotas and import tariffs that are currently in place,” he said.
“Beef exports to Japan are projected to double or, perhaps, even triple. There will be similar relief from trade barriers in Vietnam and Malaysia — fast- growing markets that represent also 120 million people.”