by Christopher Wenk

Day three of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations is underway at the Hotel Intercontinental in San Francisco. Various negotiating groups have been meeting over the last few days ranging from market access to investment to services to IPR to name a few. We have been told by various TPP negotiators that the talks have been “constructive” and a “fair bit of progress” has been made thus far.  What the Chamber, and the broader business community, is seeking this week is to build some momentum coming of out San Francisco as the negotiations head to Round 3 in Brunei in October. Ideally, this week will lead to being able to table some actual negotiating texts at the next round.  Week seems promising so far.

As an aside to the actual negotiations this week, there are various “stakeholders” in San Francisco participating in the negotiations. More than 30 people. A list of the groups in town, which includes the AFL-CIO, American Farm Bureau Federation, Friends of the Earth, International Forum on Globalization, Oceana, PETA, Sierra Club and, of course, the Chamber can be found on USTR’s TPP website.

Of course, these groups all have a wide range of views on the TPP and trade generally. Some constructive, some not so constructive. Afterall, some of these groups participated in the rally and protest on the first day of the negotiations. However, the Chamber applauds USTR for incorporating this stakeholder process in San Francisco this week and we appreciate the opportunity to participate. I know that the various TPP delegation’s have benefited from hearing presentations from some of these stakeholders. These same delegation’s have also benefited from hearing the different views among the stakeholders.

The Chamber is strongly interested in achieving a robust and comprehensive 21st Century TPP agreement. As a key stakeholder in these negotiations, we will continue advocating for one at every stage of the talks.  In San Francisco, in Washington or wherever else we need to.