AFP, Seattle :
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday sought to fend off critics of a huge emerging Pacific trade pact, saying it would set the “highest standards” to protect workers and the environment.
Addressing workers at a Boeing aerospace factory in Renton, near Seattle, Washington, Kerry vowed that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be a “historic trade agreement.”
“The TPP is not your grandparents’ trade agreement. It’s not your mom and dad’s trade agreement,” Kerry said.
“This is a new, new entity, and ultimately, this is a 21st century agreement where the key understandings and high standards are baked right into the four corners of the text.”
The ambitious, 12-nation TPP is still under negotiation, but would eventually encompass 40 percent of the world’s global economy, largely thanks to the inclusion of the United States and Japan.
But trade unions have voiced criticism that the deal, being largely negotiated in secret, will fall short of international labor standards.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) says it is calling for the deal to include a strong labor chapter “that ensures workers in any TPP country, including Vietnam, can exercise basic rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday sought to fend off critics of a huge emerging Pacific trade pact, saying it would set the “highest standards” to protect workers and the environment.
Addressing workers at a Boeing aerospace factory in Renton, near Seattle, Washington, Kerry vowed that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be a “historic trade agreement.”
“The TPP is not your grandparents’ trade agreement. It’s not your mom and dad’s trade agreement,” Kerry said.
“This is a new, new entity, and ultimately, this is a 21st century agreement where the key understandings and high standards are baked right into the four corners of the text.”
The ambitious, 12-nation TPP is still under negotiation, but would eventually encompass 40 percent of the world’s global economy, largely thanks to the inclusion of the United States and Japan.
But trade unions have voiced criticism that the deal, being largely negotiated in secret, will fall short of international labor standards.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) says it is calling for the deal to include a strong labor chapter “that ensures workers in any TPP country, including Vietnam, can exercise basic rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining.”
