Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership will accelerate in July, with New Zealand officials working to stitch up a deal by the month's end, according to Trade Minister Tim Groser.
With US legislators granting President Barack Obama's administration fast-track approval, Groser expects the 12 nations' negotiators will put their real cards on the table after several years of shadow-boxing.
The US Senate and House of Representatives this month affirmed Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track authority, meaning the president can take a trade deal to Congress for a so-called 'up or down' vote, which can only accept or reject the deal, not alter it. Unless US policymakers approved TPA, Japan and Canada wouldn't back a final deal.
"Now that Congress has spoken, it is show time," Groser said in a speech to the US/NZ Partnership Forum in Auckland. "I have learned never to be dogmatic about timetables, but the scenario that I and my negotiators are working to is that we have to get the basic political deal done by the end of July, including finalising all the chapter texts, leaving only legal rectification by experts to be done thereafter."
Groser said a successfully completed deal won't be perfect, but that he and his officials have told Prime Minister John Key and other ministers that "there is potentially a landing zone for a good deal that will indeed shape the future of trade and investment integration in the Asia-Pacific region, and quite decisively."