TPP Negotiations

TPP Negotiations. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The 19th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations concluded last week. National Pork Producers VP and Counsel for International Affairs Nick Giordano says the first principle is that a final, successful TPP agreement must be comprehensive - covering all elements of trade and investment. GIORDANO: Secondly we don't want any product or sector exclusions. We certainly don't want agriculture as a whole to be excluded because once you start excluding things, agreements tend to unravel. So it's in our best interest to make sure that these agreements are comprehensive. That there are no exclusions and then that all tariffs and other market access barriers be eliminated. Another principle is to have robust outcomes on sanitary-phytosanitary issues . GIORDANO: Specifically within agriculture we'd like to see an SPS chapter that goes beyond the WTO SPS agreement so an SPS plus chapter if you will which would include a rapid response mechanism. And the idea here is to not to have to go to the WTO every time we have a problem or not to have problems on a long track. Of course in agriculture we've got products often with a very limited shelf life and we want to get those issues resolved as soon as possible. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.