President Obama will meet the leaders of four nations – Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines – during a trip through Asia that begins on Tuesday. “The White House had hoped to be able to announce major progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation Pacific free trade pact that stands at the core of the Obama administration’s bid to ramp up U.S. economic engagement in the region. But U.S. and Japanese negotiators failed to make a breakthough during two days of talks that concluded in Washington, D.C. on Friday,” says the Washington Post.
Japan, one of the major customers for U.S. farm exports, wants to exempt five “sacred” agricultural products, including rice, wheat, beef, dairy products and sugar, from market openings. Five U.S. agribusiness groups sent a letter to the administration last week to “applaud the strong stance your Administration has taken in negotiations with Japan.”
The JiJi news agency said “the two countries will hold a working-level meeting in Japan early next week, in order to achieve a breakthrough in the stalemate before a bilateral summit in Japan on Thursday.”
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said early on Monday, “Japan’s tariff rate on rice imports will likely be maintained almost at the current level in negotiations with the United States…The next focus of attention will be on volumes of tariff-free imports of key five farm products to compensate for the compromise. Details still need to be ironed out, however, regarding the five categories of agricultural products, for which the Japanese government seeks to maintain existing tariffs.”