NFTC backs potential Asia Pacific trade deal

NFTC backs potential Asia Pacific trade deal The National Foreign Trade Council has voiced its support for a transpacific free trade agreement with key trading partners in Southeast Asia and South America.
   NFTC Vice President for Regional Trade Initiatives Chuck Dittrich told the interagency U.S. Trade Policy Staff Committee in testimony Wednesday that the U.S.-Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement, 'will expand and deepen ties' with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam.
   “We support this focus on the Asia Pacific region on its commercial merits,' Dittrich said. 'This region is key to maintaining and increasing U.S. competitiveness in the world. We believe the strategy of building on an existing P-4 agreement among Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei and adding willing partners as the terms of the agreement are strengthened is wise and may serve as a model for future regional agreements.”
   Dittrich said the Asia Pacific countries represent the largest export market in the world, accounting for 41 percent of the global population, or the equivalent of 2.7 billion consumers. He also noted that the United States is the No. 1 trading partner in the region, and the largest or second-largest for every major Asian economy.
   “As we face a global economic crisis of historic proportion, we endorse the initiation of this major trade liberalizing initiative as a clear statement to those who would use the economic fear now circling the globe as an excuse to erect protectionist barriers that have the potential to further damage U.S. and global economic recovery,” Dittich said.