Washington DC – Yesterday, National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) President Bill Reinsch delivered remarks at the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association on the Obama Administration’s trade policy. During his remarks, Reinsch examined the outlook for trade in 2014 from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations to passage of trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation to the challenges of a 21st century global trading system.
In his remarks, Reinsch stated:
“Last year when I was giving these speeches, I predicted a year with lots of activity and few results. That’s pretty much what happened. We made progress in a number of areas, but, aside from the Bali Ministerial, there were few results. And even that was hardly a huge outcome; although, just getting an agreement was a significant accomplishment. This year, had I been writing this speech two months ago, I would have said 2014 will be a year of results, but, now, eight weeks into the year, it’s beginning to look more like 2013.
“The agenda hasn’t changed. And – fair warning – it is largely issues that are indirectly rather than directly related to what you do. Almost everything begins with ‘T’ – TPA, TPP, TTIP, TISA and TAA – but there is also ITA and now EGSA. These are big deals in every sense of the word, and they reflect both the rapid changes occurring in the trading system and the evolution in countries’ strategies for dealing with multilateral gridlock.”
Click
here to read the full remarks.
