Chapter 94 TPP Agreement

Hawaii, as its name suggests, has only summer, not winter. Even in winter, the temperature still reaches 26 degrees Celsius. On any given day, people can go to the sea and play in the water.

The busiest part of the area is Kalakawua Ave in Wakiki, where many foreigners visit Hawaii.

Voted the most beautiful beach in the United States, Kaanapali Beach, with five kilometers of pristine white sand and crystal clear waters, Maui is once the royal retreat of Maui and is now a world-renowned tourist destination. The resort also has it all, as well as two championship golf courses.

Imperial Prime Minister Song Hee-mo and Imperial Commerce Minister Shangshu Xia Haiyan are participating in bilateral negotiations with countries related to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) here, and in the past few days, the trade ministers of several countries participating in the TPP have held several rounds of talks to admit Ming to join the TPP.

At noon the day before, at the photo spot printed with the TPP logo, Song Ximo, Xia Haiyan and Lang Haiping, three senior officials of the Ming Kingdom, also took a group photo with more than a dozen ministerial-level representatives of TPP member countries.

Today, a breakthrough was finally achieved in the negotiations after a few days, and Song Ximo was officially admitted to the TPP as the 12th member state. The national flag of the Ming Kingdom was also officially hung outside the venue and hotel, along with the other 11 member states.

As we all know, there are two large-scale economic organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, one is APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. The other is the TPP.

The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) has gone from obscurity to one of the hottest new words on the world trade stage.

The most important feature of the TPP is that members commit to mutual preferential treatment and strengthen cooperation in the fields of trade in goods, trade in services, intellectual property rights, and investment. The core of these is tariff reduction, which means that 90% of the tariffs on goods in member countries will be eliminated immediately, and tariffs on all products will be waived for 12 years.

With Japan joining the talks as the 11th member in May, the impact of the TPP is being estimated to be increasingly important, especially as many see it as an economic move by the United States to "pivot to Asia."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reason for pushing for Japan's accession to the TPP negotiations emphasized that "the TPP contributes to Japan's national security."

In addition, the most striking aspect of the TPP is that it does not involve China. At least one of the main purposes of the TPP is to "shut China out."

At present, the TPP consists of only Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Japan, a total of 11 members.

As the world's largest importer, the U.S. market is still the most attractive big cake for any country.

However, as the leader of the TPP, the United States has formulated its own favorable policies in terms of trade negotiations, taking Chile, which signed a free trade agreement with the United States in 2003, as an example, Chile's exports to the United States have increased from $3.8 billion to $9.5 billion in the past ten years, an increase of three times, but at the same time, imports from the United States have increased from $2.6 billion to $16.9 billion, a sharp increase of more than six times, from a certain surplus to a huge deficit.

The TPP places great emphasis on opening up and deregulating finance, services, and electronic information, which are known to be the strongest points of the United States. Emphasizing that the mandatory harmonization of standards for labor, environment, and intellectual property protection, regardless of the level of development and specific circumstances of each country, is a great benefit to developed economies, especially the United States.

However, it will greatly weaken the latecomers and comparative advantages of the developing economies participating in the TPP. The TPP's so-called "high-standard, comprehensive free trade" is in essence to open up the markets of other countries to the greatest extent possible for countries at the top of the international financial, service and technology industry chains.

But Ming doesn't matter, because Ming is originally a small country, his market is limited, and the existing industries have been monopolized by the Ming royal consortium, even if it is an emerging industry in the future, with the mastermind of the Ming royal consortium is also competitive enough. But even then, negotiations with the United States cannot be taken lightly.

Experts from Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun believe that after Ming joins the TPP, Ming will become the biggest winner, because Ming Guo's most important winemaking, jewelry, and agriculture industries will be exported to all parts of the world in the form of zero tariffs, while its own alcohol, jewelry, and agriculture from the outside world will not affect Ming Guo.

In the future, Mingguo's products will be very competitive in price, so Mingguo's exports are also expected to grow by about 30%.

According to Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asia Trade Center, the biggest beneficiary of the TPP will be Mingguo, which has poured into the country since the government announced last year the policy of providing loans and immigration for small and medium-sized enterprises, and if the TPP agreement is signed, it will help more investors to pour into the country.

Unlike Japan and the United States, which are in the dark because of tariffs on agricultural products and automobiles, the negotiations between Ming are very smooth, and after all, Ming has a single product, a small production scale, and will not have much impact on the products of other countries.

Imperial Prime Minister Song Ximo's negotiations focused on the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Mexico, all of which are big countries, and once an FTA (free trade agreement) is signed, it will be very beneficial for the export of Ming products.

In fact, the Ming and the United States have nothing to talk about in this regard, because as early as the founding of the Ming Kingdom, they had already agreed that the United States would open all its markets, and the American grain companies would also open up on the land of the Ming Kingdom, but the people of the Ming Kingdom were accustomed to eating the rice and meat products of the Ming Kingdom, and the American products could not open the Ming Kingdom market at all. Although the zero-tariff American rice is very cheap, the rice of the Ming Kingdom is also very cheap, and Zhu Wei has the mastermind and can dump it in the market at any time. However, the agricultural market in the United States was reciprocal and open to the Ming Kingdom, because the United States did not take the grain production of the Ming Kingdom seriously, but after the Ming grain market in China was rolled out, the grain of the Ming Kingdom would invade the American market on a large scale.

Of the 31 areas, Song Ximo was able to accept most of them, and only a few areas that needed to be negotiated at the ministerial meeting were actually left in terms of intellectual property, investment, and state-owned enterprise reform. In these fields, there are no state-owned enterprises in the Ming Kingdom, so it does not involve the reform of state-owned enterprises, so this item can also be removed.

Zhu Songximo is concerned about the fact that the parties have not reached an agreement on the term of patent protection for newly developed pharmaceuticals in the field of intellectual property. On this issue, there is a big gap between the United States and other countries. The U.S., which has a large number of large pharmaceutical companies, advocates a longer term of protection of 12 years, while countries such as Australia, which relies on late-developing drugs (drugs with the same ingredients as the new drug sold after the expiration of a new drug patent) and new drugs from foreign companies, advocate a shorter term of protection. Many countries, including Japan, are opposed to a term of protection of more than 10 years, and hope that a consensus can be reached on an eight-year compromise at the ministerial meeting. However, the United States did not make concessions in this negotiation.

The Trademark Office will protect the patent holder's inventions from being manufactured, used, and sold by others during the patent period. In terms of the patent term of drugs, Ming Guo certainly supports the United States.

Therefore, the negotiations between the two countries went very smoothly, and an FTA was signed quickly. We fulfilled the responsibilities of the TPP.

The next thing to be conquered is Japan, Japan's trade barriers are mainly agriculture, and Japan will resolutely not allow Ming's imported and exported grain and meat to invade the Japanese market, which is the same as his attitude towards the United States. Japan allows zero tariff import of rice quota of 700,000 tons per year, and a large number of tariffs will be levied if this standard is exceeded, so it doesn't matter if Ming Guo also adds tariffs on your agricultural products, it's a big deal that we don't import each other.

The Ming State is not as demanding as other countries, and the 12 countries cannot make a big agreement, but the Ming State can negotiate separately and separately, and under the premise that the two sides do not touch agriculture, the interests of the other side are maintained, and the two countries will formally sign the agreement tomorrow.

In this way, the multi-day TPP Ministerial Meeting for Trans-Pacific Partnership finally came to an end. Although the countries did not fully agree, Ming Guo had already got what he wanted.