Tokyo, 18 November, /AJMEDIA/
global economy.
Leaders signed a deal on supply chains, and reached agreements on climate and anticorruption.
Trade remains the last holdout, a blow to Biden who launched the initiative last year bringing together the United States and 13 other nations — including Japan, India and much of Southeast Asia, although notably not China.
Asia Society Policy Institute vice president Wendy Cutler noted the lack of a deal “is a major setback for US trade policy.”
Beijing’s active trade agenda ought to nudge Washington towards a “bolder approach,” or it risks having its influence undermined as partners work with each other and China, Cutler argued in an earlier commentary.
While she conceded a November deadline was “ambitious” as trade talks typically require more time, she warned that prospects are slim for further progress as the 2024 elections draw close — the trade section has drawn criticism in part due to a lack of worker protections, an issue that looms large for US voters.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo lauded progress this week at the APEC summit in San Francisco.
She said agreements on climate, the energy transition and combating corruption were worthwhile, as was the creation of a ministerial council for cooperation.
IPEF, she said, “was never conceived to be a trade agreement.”
She added in separate remarks that the U.S. aims to be a “durable force and partner” in the Asia-Pacific, a region from which it had been largely absent in the years before Biden took office.
It is “difficult to judge” the scale of commitments made without the full texts of the latest agreements, said Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“It is concerning that the trade pillar was not concluded because the IPEF has been pitched as the answer to U.S. withdrawal from the TPP,” she added.
“One of the most difficult realities of the last few years has been that the United States has stepped down from its leadership role on trade,” Manak told AFP. “Even if the IPEF trade pillar is concluded, the absence of high standard digital trade rules would weaken its overall value.”
