Talks between the United States and Japan seen as vital to a broader regional trade pact had narrowed to a few critical areas and will resume again on Monday, officials of both countries said on Friday, as negotiators struggle to bridge gaps ahead of a summit between the countries’ leaders.
A U.S.-Japan agreement is critical to the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation grouping that would stretch from Asia to Latin America. The TPP is central to U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy of expanding America’s presence in Asia.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for his part, has touted the TPP as a main element of his strategy to reform the world’s third largest economy and generate sustainable growth.
The two leaders are keen to show progress, if not clinch a deal, in time for their April 24 summit in Tokyo, but on Friday, after a 20-hour negotiating session, a deal remained elusive, a senior U.S. administration official said.
Negotiators are down to a relatively limited set of outstanding issues, but considerable differences separate the two sides, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Sticking points from the U.S. perspective revolve in equal measure around access to Japan’s markets for agricultural products as well as Japanese regulations that serve to block automotive imports, the official said.
Discussions will continue in the days and weeks ahead, but there is no particular deadline for concluding the talks, the official added. Momentum behind the talks need not stall because negotiators have not struck a deal ahead of Obama’s visit to Japan, the official said.
Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari echoed the U.S. official’s assessment.
“We still have big differences,” he told reporters in Washington after another round of talks with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, according to Kyodo news agency.
But “the gaps are getting smaller,” Amari was reported as saying before he left for Japan. Late on Thursday, he had said talks were at a “stalemate”.
USTR confirmed talks would resume between U.S. Acting Deputy United States Trade Representative Wendy Cutler and Japanese Deputy Chief Negotiator Hiroshi Oe in Tokyo on Monday.
The United States wants Japan to open its rice, beef and pork, dairy, and sugar markets - politically powerful sectors that Abe has vowed to defend. Japan wants a timetable on U.S. promises to drop tariffs of 2.5% on imports of passenger cars and 25% on light trucks.
Japanese media have reported that the United States, which has been pushing Japan to scrap its tariffs, is willing to let Japan keep import levies on rice, wheat and sugar while it will create a mechanism to boost its imports of U.S. rice.
Gaps remain over the size of cuts in tariffs on beef and over pork as well, the media said.
Japanese officials have been hoping that a two-way trade deal with Australia clinched this month, which allowed it to keep reduced tariffs on beef, would pressure the United States to make similar concessions.
Some experts say U.S. negotiators are at a disadvantage because the White House does not have authority to fast track agreements through Congress, given opposition by senior Democrats to a bill laying the groundwork for a yes-or-no vote by lawmakers.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014.
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