Is The Trans-Pacific Partnership A Boon For The U.S. Food & Beverage Industry?

By Karil Kochenderfer, Principal, Linkages, Global Trade, Government & Public Affairs

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being promoted as a boon to U.S. agri-food exports to Asia, but is it? Tariffs may be falling, but increasing regulatory barriers to trade seem to be rising in their place, raising questions about just how free or fair U.S. trade is with other nations.

What Is TPP And Why Should Food Companies Care?
TPP is a regional trade agreement being negotiated by 12 countries — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam — bordering the Pacific Ocean. TPP attempts to harness the economic growth in the transpacific region and encourage even more open trade among the 12 TPP nations. Together, these countries and their trading partners constitute 40 percent of the global economy.

Market growth rates in the region already are far above U.S. and European averages — somewhere between 3 and 8 percent — explaining the U.S. Government and the food industry’s “tilt” to the Asia-Pacific region.

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