United States President Barack Obama faces an uphill battle if he wants to progress a free trade deal including New Zealand.Philip Levy, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, spoke at the US Embassy in Wellington this aftern
United States President Barack Obama faces an uphill battle if he wants to progress a free trade deal including New Zealand.
Philip Levy, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, spoke at the US Embassy in Wellington this afternoon.
NZPA asked him about the chances of success for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact which aimed to extend the previously negotiated P4 trade agreement between New Zealand, Brunei, Chile and Singapore to include the US, Australia, Peru and Vietnam. The first round of talks was held in Australia in March.
"The political challenges are very serious," Mr Levy said.
"The president has great political skills and he may be able to overcome these, I am greatly encouraged by the Korea announcement because it suggests that the president and his team see a way clear to overcome these obstacles. But they are seeing something at the moment that I don't."
President Obama told the G20 meeting in Toronto last week he wanted a free trade pact with South Korea to go to Congress by early 2011.
It was the first time President Obama laid out a clear timeframe for action on the pact, which the United States and South Korea signed three years ago during the administration of former President George W Bush.
It has been stalled since President Obama took office, along with two other Bush trade deals with Panama and Colombia, because of strong resistance from many Democrats such as House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat.
Mr Levy said while former Democrat President Bill Clinton had a centrist base President Obama was in a different position.
"The problem is if you look at the raw politics of it the sceptics tend to be on the left of the Democratic Party and that's the president's base of support."
The president had to deal with deep seated antipathies.
"He did not see his way clear to re-educating these groups at any point up until now."
Democrat opponents' electoral chances were linked to their positions on trade and "these were not whims".
However, he was not ruling out any progress given Mr Obama has "real clout as president ... And the Korean move is very, very heartening. I am much more optimistic than I was on Friday".
Overall Mr Levy said trade was not a high priority for the US administration.
"There's a long laundry list and trade wasn't even really a plank that was on there. You have people in the administration who are very good and very knowledgeable on these topics and they recognise the importance of trade. But as a political matter in terms of what the administration can promise ... you basically get to this divisiveness.
"I think it's getting pushed upon them. There a acute awareness, it came up with the president's November trip that you can't really pretend to be a major player in Asia doing nothing about trade."
