JAPAN’S TPP MOVES PUT PRESSURE ON U.S.: The United States’ inability to move forward on the TPP isn’t stopping other members of the pact from going ahead and trying to ratify it themselves. A Japanese embassy aide said Tuesday that government leaders in Tokyo hope to pass the agreement by the end of the year, and a report in Japanese media said the first vote in the lower house of the Japanese Diet could come as soon as Friday.
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DRIFTING TOWARD BEIJING: With the TPP looking in doubt, leaders of Asia-Pacific nations appear to playing out the Obama administration’s worst-case scenario of drifting toward closer ties with Beijing, Bill Reinsch, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center and former president of the National Foreign Trade Council, told Morning Trade.
“Everybody is starting to suck up to the Chinese,” Reinsch said, referring to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s current six-day trip to China that comes hot on the heels of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent visit. “If they think [TPP] is going to go down, they’ll go with plan B.”
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