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Obama expects to complete Asia-Pacific trade deal this year
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US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he is confident that the United States can complete a trade deal with 11 other countries in the Asia Pacific this year.
"The trade ministers should be meeting again sometime in the next several weeks. They have the opportunity to close the deal," Obama said, referring to the next round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial meeting.
In the last round of talks in July, trade ministers from 12 Pacific Rim countries failed to reach a final deal with key obstacles remaining in the areas of market access and intellectual property.
"Most chapters have been completed at this point," Obama said after giving a speech to members of the Business Roundtable in Washington. "I am confident that we can get it done, and I believe we can get it done this year."
Obama said he will work hard with Republican and Democratic leaders to get the TPP agreement through Congress once they complete the negotiations, noting that "the politics around trade are tough."
"We should not assume, though, that because the authority was done, that we automatically are going to be able to get TPP done," Obama said, referring to the trade promotion authority he got in June, which would allow him to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendments.
The TPP, covering about 40 percent of global economy and believed to be the biggest trade agreement in the world in the past two decades, is central to the Obama administration's policy of advancing economic engagement in Asia and writing the rules for international trade and investment in the 21st century.
The Obama administration is under pressure to seal a TPP deal and get it passed in Congress as soon as possible, securing the president's trade legacy before the 2016 US presidential campaign heats up.
The TPP talks involve Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
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