US seeks lead in crafting Asia free trade vision

US: The United States is looking to forge a new vision on free trade that boosts its role in Asia while assuaging public concerns as officials from the Pacific Rim prepare to meet at a mountain resort. Trade representatives from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum gather Wednesday in Big Sky, Montana - near sprawling Yellowstone National Park - to help lay out an agenda for a wide-ranging trade pact.

President Barack Obama has set an ambitious goal of doubling US exports to boost the uncertain economy. He also hopes trade can serve as a tangible tool to increase US influence around Asia, where the rise of China is looming large.

At the heart of Obama’s efforts are negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which involves nine APEC countries. The Big Sky talks will look at how to meet a self-set deadline of reaching a framework TPP deal by November.

The Obama administration has embraced the TPP as a way to create what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called a “cutting-edge, next-generation trade deal” that eliminates tariffs but also enforces labor and environmental standards and encourages green technologies.

“These goals matter to all of us, and they should especially matter to those emerging economies that are growing at such a rapid rate,” Clinton told APEC officials in March in Washington.

Deputy US Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis recently called the TPP “the singularly most important platform for regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific.” Ernie Bower, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the TPP differed from China’s vision of an Asian economic integration with few conditions attached. “I think there’s a real view, although no one will probably articulate it, that there needs to be a balancing trade initiative compared with what the Chinese are offering,” Bower said.

Montana, Wednesday, AFP