Opposed to Granting Japan Concessions on Autos, Mexico Throws a Wrench Into TPP Talks Carter Dougherty - Bloomberg
go to original September 5, 2015

Workers on the production line at Honda Motor’s plant in Celaya, Mexico. (Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg)

When exhausted officials from the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership wrapped up a week of talks in Hawaii at the end of July without reaching a deal, Mexico’s economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo, brushed off efforts to pin the delay on him. “What you can accuse me of,” he told the press with an amused smile, is advocating for “the interests of my country.”

Guajardo is fighting to ensure that the TPP does not jeopardize gains his country has made under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated tariffs on goods shipped between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. Ford Motor, General Motors, and Chrysler (now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) all expanded production south of the Rio Grande after the deal took effect in 1994 to take advantage of duty-free access to the U.S. market and Mexico’s low wages. European and Japanese manufacturers did the same. Last year, Mexico overtook Japan to become the second-largest exporter of vehicles to the U.S., behind Canada.

Clinching a deal on the TPP, a trade bloc that would stretch from Chile to Japan and cover 40 percent of the world’s economic output, is a top priority for President Obama. To speed the talks along, Washington provisionally agreed that Japan’s automakers should be allowed to ship vehicles to North America duty-free, even if a significant proportion of their content comes from non-TPP countries. (The U.S. levies a 2.5 percent duty on autos and 25 percent on light trucks from outside the Nafta area.) In the eyes of the Mexicans, that means “anyone who is willing, ready, and able to build pickups could become a challenge,” says Guido Vildozo, an analyst with consultant IHS Automotive.

Read the rest at Bloomberg

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could cost us our internet freedom, labor rights, access to affordable medicine, the safety of our food, and protections that keep our water and air clean. (ExposeTheTPP)

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