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WASHINGTON: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said on Monday (Nov. 16) it was concerned the United States would fall behind after 15 Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade bloc on Sunday, consolidating China’s dominant role in regional trade.
The Chamber welcomed the trade liberalization benefits of the new Regional Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (RCEP), saying that US exporters, workers and farmers needed greater access to Asian markets. But he said Washington should not join the bloc.
RCEP covers 30 percent of the world’s economy and 30 percent of the world’s population, joining the Asian powers China, Japan and South Korea for the first time. Its objective in the coming years is to progressively reduce tariffs in many areas.
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The United States is absent from both the RCEP and the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), leaving the world’s largest economy out of two trade groups that encompass the world’s fastest-growing region.
Myron Brilliant, Executive Vice Speaker of the House, said the Trump administration had moved to tackle China’s unfair trade practices, but secured only limited new opportunities for U.S. exporters in other parts of Asia.
President Donald Trump in early 2017 resigned from the TPP deal, which his predecessor, Barack Obama, had negotiated as part of a U.S. turn to Asia. Trump has not concluded any new full trade deals in Asia since then, Brilliant said.
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“Given the shortcomings of RCEP, we would not recommend that the United States join,” Brilliant said, without elaborating. “The United States should, however, adopt a more forward-looking strategic effort to maintain a strong US economic presence in the region.”
Brilliant noted that US exports to the Asia-Pacific market had increased steadily in recent decades, but that the market share of US companies had declined.
He underscored the importance of the Asia-Pacific market, citing forecasts that forecast an average growth rate of more than 5% in 2021 and a rapid expansion of the middle class.
