Doug Palmer writes the TPP would serve as a key component of the Obama administration’s Asia-Pacific foreign policy rebalancing initiative and establish e-commerce, labor and environmental rules among the participating nations.
The latest round of talks focused on drug, automobile and dairy market provisions, the report said.
U.S. and Australian trade officials reached a compromise on TPP language about the patent protection for biologic drugs, with negotiators from the two countries agreeing to a five-year biologics exclusivity period, the publication reports.
The White House believes the initiative’s economic and geostrategic goals will encourage Congress to back the proposed 12-nation trade treaty.