U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has
suspended its efforts to win congressional approval for his Asian
free-trade deal before President-elect Donald Trump takes office,
saying on Friday that TPP's fate was up to Trump and Republican
lawmakers.
Administration officials also said Obama would try to explain
the situation to leaders of the 11 other countries in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership pact next week when he attends a regional
summit in Peru.
Obama's cabinet secretaries and the U.S. Trade Representative's
office had been lobbying lawmakers for months to pass the
12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in the post-election,
lame-duck session of Congress. However, Trump's stunning election
victory that sends him to the White House in January and retains
Republican majorities in Congress has stymied those plans.
"We have worked closely with Congress to resolve outstanding
issues and are ready to move forward, but this is a legislative
process and it's up to congressional leaders as to whether and when
this moves forward," USTR spokesman Matt McAlvanah said in a
statement.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he
would not take up TPP in the weeks before Trump's inauguration and
said its fate was now up to Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan had
earlier said he would not proceed with a lame-duck vote.
Trump made his opposition to the TPP a centerpiece of his
campaign, calling it a "disaster" and "a rape of our country" that
would send more jobs overseas. His anti-free-trade message and
pledges to stem the tide of imported goods from China and Mexico
won him massive support among blue-collar workers in the industrial
heartland states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,
helping to swing the election his way.
Trump has said he will scrap TPP, renegotiate the 22-year-old
North American Free Trade Agreement and adopt a much tougher trade
stance with China.
The TPP agreement, negotiated for more than five years and
signed in October 2015, was aimed at reducing trade barriers
erected by some of the fastest growing economies in Asia and
boosting ties with U.S. allies in the region in the face of China's
rising influence.
White House Deputy National Security Advisor Wally Adeyemo told
reporters on Friday that Obama will tell TPP member countries at
the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that the United States
will remain engaged in Asia, and that it recognizes the benefits of
trade and such deals still make sense.
"In terms of the TPP agreement itself, Leader McConnell has
spoken to that and it's something that he's going to work with the
President-elect to figure out where they go in terms of trade
agreements in the future," Adeyemo said. "But we continue to think
that these types of deals make sense, simply because countries like
China are not going to stop working on regional agreements."