Unseen side of TPP talks
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan
Japan in Depth / Unseen side of TPP talks
3 May 2014
Japan-U.S. bilateral negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership multinational free trade agreement have overcome their largest remaining hurdle, with a substantive agreement reached after renewed talks held in tandem with U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Japan from April 23 to 25.
This article offers a glimpse behind the curtain at Japan-U.S. negotiations on the TPP agreement, a monumental accord that is certain to bring about a major transformation of both Japan’s international economic partnerships and the nation’s domestic agricultural policies.
Around noon on April 25, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proudly said to reporters following the announcement of a Japan-U.S. joint statement, “We were able to make a groundbreaking achievement, one which will become a key milestone of the entire TPP negotiations.”
But when it came time to report the results of the Japan-U.S. negotiations on the TPP talks, the evening editions of Japan’s newspapers reported it in different ways. While The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the countries had “reached a substantive agreement,” other newspapers reported a “failure to reach an agreement” or that the countries were “putting off reaching an agreement.” One newspaper’s headline implied a quid pro quo linking TPP concessions from Japan with security guarantees from the United States.
At an April 24 press conference, Obama stated unequivocally that the Senkaku Islands fall within the scope of Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which obliges the United States to defend Japan. He became the first U.S. president to make such a statement, one that was repeated by the joint statement issued by the two countries.
The wording of the entire joint statement, except passages concerning the TPP talks, had been drafted by the evening of April 23, when Obama arrived in Japan. One government source who reviewed a draft for the joint statement said, “In the version of the draft I saw on the evening of April 23, only the part dealing with TPP issues was left blank, marked to say it was ‘a pending issue.’”
If, as some have speculated, the TPP talks were used as collateral to ensure security guarantees from the United States, portions of the draft concerning the Senkakus would also be expected to remain blank and denoted as pending. However, given that the Senkakus section was not blank, those speculations cannot be true.
Although the draft left Japan-U.S. TPP negotiations as a pending issue, by the evening of April 24, when Akira Amari, state minister in charge of TPP issues, and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman met for a third round of talks, the two countries had already reached an agreement on how to handle tariffs on the five key categories of agricultural products.
On the morning of April 25, when media fervor surrounding the Japan-U.S. negotiations had reached its peak, one government source close to the negotiations told The Yomiuri Shimbun, “There is no issue in speaking of a ‘9 percent or more’ tariff on beef, but to say the ‘4.3 percent tariff on pork will be halved’ would be incorrect.”
The source’s statement apparently referred to previous newspaper reports. Five days before, The Yomiuri Shimbun had reported in its April 20 morning edition that Japan and the United States had agreed to reduce the current 38.5 percent tariff on beef to 9 percent or more. Concerning a tariff on pork, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported the current 4.3 percent tariff rate would be reduced, but gave no concrete figures; other papers reported that the tariff rate would be halved.
The government source revealed some of the results of the bilateral negotiations by indicating whether preceding newspaper stories were accurate.
Around the same time, a different government source told a second Yomiuri Shimbun staff writer that Japan and the United States had reached a broad agreement on all of the five categories, commenting with deep feeling: “Japan will change. Today is a historic day.”
When the joint statement was announced around 10 a.m. on April 25, it said of TPP issues that the two countries “have identified a path forward on important bilateral TPP issues,” thereby marking a “key milestone” in the TPP negotiations.
On the night of April 25, Abe reportedly said to his aides, “If the joint statement had been read closely, media would not have reported it as ‘having failed to reach an agreement.’ That would be clear if they had closely read how TPP issues are presented in the joint statement.”
Evening newspapers on April 25 were divided on whether Japan-U.S. talks on a TPP trade pact had resulted in an agreement. Subsequently, reporters were seen grilling government sources over which reports were correct. Some examples of such conversations follow:
* * *
Reporter: The Yomiuri Shimbun’s article read, “Japan and the United States reached a substantial agreement.” Was it incorrect?
Amari: I have no idea. Don’t ask me. Ask the Yomiuri.
* * *
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga: I was stunned by the report in today’s evening paper.
Reporter: So, would it be correct to interpret that as saying The Yomiuri Shimbun report was wrong?
Suga: Well, we’ve never reached a broad agreement. That’s all I can say.
* * *
However, unlike several politicians who denied the two countries’ broad agreement on TPP issues, working-level government sources hinted that the two governments had, in fact, reached such an agreement.
One senior official close to the Japan-U.S. TPP negotiations explained the situation to reporters in the following context.
* * *
Reporter: The Yomiuri Shimbun reported the two nations reached a substantial agreement.
Senior official: Without agreement to a certain extent, it would be impossible to lobby other countries participating in the TPP talks, don’t you think?
Reporter: So, you’ve come up with figures, too?
Senior official: Nothing can be agreed without discussing figures.
Reporter: Minister Amari has said no agreement was made.
Senior official: That’s true. But without any proposals [between Japan and the United States], we can’t say to any of the other 10 nations, “O.K., we’ll go ahead with this idea.” It would be impossible for us to tell them to conclude their TPP negotiations while Japan and the United States haven’t reached any agreement.
* * *
So, why did working-level government sources hint at the agreement while politicians denied it?
It is certainly true that some involved in the talks do not want the agreed contents to be released before they are presented to the other 10 nations.
Regarding the politicians, it is undeniable that they were strongly concerned about the possibility that details of what had been agreed might adversely affect Sunday’s House of Representatives by-election in Kagoshima Constituency No. 2.
Kagoshima Prefecture is home to many pig farmers. A revelation suggesting Japanese negotiators had been forced to make concessions on pork in the bilateral TPP talks would have changed the election situation completely.
In mid-April, the Prime Minister’s Office had already decided, under Suga’s leadership, how TPP issues would be incorporated into the joint statement for release following the Japan-U.S. summit meeting.
The office decided that only abstract expressions—such as “made great progress”—would be mentioned in the joint statement, while the phrase “broad agreement” should be avoided.
Having received predictions of the by-election result, the office categorically instructed those involved in the working-level TPP negotiations not to mention specific figures that had surfaced during the talks.
This is the reason why the politicians all simultaneously denied the agreement.
On Sunday evening, mindful of conflicting media reports, one government source said the White House had spoken highly of what had been achieved in the bilateral talks, going as far as to call it a historic breakthrough.
But the source also stressed that, since the multilateral negotiations involve 12 nations in total, no ultimate agreement had yet been reached.
Explaining about the Japan-U.S. joint statement, which had mentioned a call from the two countries upon all TPP participants, the source also said: “It means, of course, that agreement had taken shape between Japan and the United States in the bilateral talks. Therefore, ‘No agreement has been reached’ and ‘In substantial terms a basic agreement has been reached’ are both correct.”
