 Good morning everybody, I hope they've turned the mics on. I'm Ernie Bauer, I'm the chair for Southeast Asia Studies and for today, wearing my other hat as director of our Pacific Partners Initiative, which looks out over US policy and our relationships with Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. We have a great discussion today, this is part of a US-Australia speaker series that was developed in concert with our friends from BHP, I think Frank Fanon and Jason are here, they're there. Thanks guys for your support. And I think the purpose of this series was to really dig deeper into the real value and grist of the US-Australia relationship. That alliance is one that is really important to both our countries, and I would argue to all of the Indo-Pacific region. And today we get to talk about really the foundation, I think, a key part of that foundation, which is the economic relationship between our countries and what the United States and Australia see in terms of trade. This is the 10th anniversary, of course, of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement. That's a very important benchmark and I hope our discussions will talk a little bit about that. And of course we're in the midst of negotiating a new trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP, and we have the two incredible advocates for that trade agreement with us here. Let me introduce our guest, Wendy Cutler is the acting deputy, US Trade Representative. Wendy's worked with USTR for about a quarter of a century. She is the woman. Sorry, Wendy. The 25 years sound better, I think. Look, it's by way of saying. When it comes to Asian trade, I've always thought of one of the areas in the US government where powerful women have been ahead of their time is trade, and Wendy is one of those. She is probably the woman when it comes to trade in Asia and really appreciated her work and her tireless commitment to those efforts. And on my right is Kim Beasley, he's the Australian ambassador to the United States. His tour has been extended here and that's a great thing for the relationship. We really, talking with Kim at any time is like getting a, it's fun, but it's also like getting a university lecture at a PhD level and then on the history and the purpose behind our relationship. So you're in for a treat today. Kim has been ambassador here since, I think, 2010. He came on a day that looked pretty much like today or a week that looked pretty much like today in February in 2010. So without further ado, let's kick it off. I hope, audience, that I want to thank the hearty souls that made it through the inch or so of snow. That's major snow for those of you in Boston, sorry, you know, but that's major snow for Washington. We have a great, we have a full room and I know that the online audience today is especially big so thank you all for joining us. I hope you'll send in your questions if you're virtual via Twitter and for those of you in the room, I hope you'll participate actively. So Kim, why don't we kick off with you and what's on your mind in the context that we just... Well, what's on my mind, Ernie, is you describing me as an incredible representative for Australia. I hope it would be credible. But the other thing that's on my mind is how terrific it is to be here and to thank you for the enormous work that you do in focusing this town on the areas where America now needs to be most heavily concerned and which I describe as the sunny uplands of American possibilities. The one area of the globe which is a both wealthy is growing fast and loves Americans and it's nice to have a part of the globe where you can say that that happens to be the case and bound up in all of that of course is the economic relationship and the various manifestations of it and trading arrangements and this is part of your speakers series that you've negotiated with BHP Billiton and that's terrific for us. It's a great thing for BHP to have the big Australian to have got in behind. Big Australian has to be said, does with its partners, 25% of the oil out of the Gulf and is the largest foreign investor in unconventional energy in this country. So the good spot and to appear with Wendy is a bit of a legend from USTR I didn't know much about USTR when I came here as an ambassador because my relationships in ministerial life had been with the Pentagon in the first instance and the State Department after that. They're different sort of Americans in USTR. They're the ones who carry the bad messages and the hard messages and they really do defend the American national interest extremely well but at the same time they have like most Americans a sense of global responsibility so they do temper their views with that understanding of what America's global role now is. I think we'd have to count the bilateral agreement. This is the 10th anniversary as Ernie said of the bilateral agreement that we established for free trade between Australia and the United States. It would have to be in the minds I think of just about anybody who has looked at American trade policies over the years and trade outcomes. It has to be just about the most successful agreement that the United States has negotiated. When you look at the outcomes that have been associated with it. It was an agreement that was based upon a very strong public sentiment between the countries and at that point of time a very close relationship between the leadership of Australia and the leadership of the United States. We're always asked when we're in jobs like mine and particularly if we have a political background like I do who represents the closest, who has represented the closest point in relations on a personal basis between leaders of Australia and leaders of the United States. That's a benchmark in Australia. It's not a benchmark in the US but it is a benchmark in Australia. And I suppose I would have to say that though he was my political nemesis that probably the relationship between John Howard and the American leadership at the time was the closest that there's actually ever been on a personal basis in relations between the two countries. So this trade agreement has to be said a bit of an outflow if you like from what that situation was then. It produced a very high quality agreement between us. I mean there are elements of it which are on the American side they see as flawed in the extent to which in the medical area or IP, the length of time that IP gets protected. In the case of Australia what was being an agreement which covered off pretty well open access to just about everything still has flaws in relation to sugar and one or two other elements of agriculture. And I might say as a sort of foreign friend of the United States you can get overly protective in this area when you look at the opportunities particularly in the Asian region that are before you. When you see in Asia where there are 580 million members of the middle class now going to 3.2 billion over the course of the next 15 years and when you see that in the first instance what people buy as they go middle class is not bling mobile phones in the life what they buy is food. They change their food consumption moving more heavily towards meat product, wheat based product when you're dealing with a situation in Asia. So there's a American farmers can look at the future we're not talking about the TPP at least not yet but I mean what an opportunity. You know you don't want a nitpick when you're looking at an opportunity to see decent high quality rules for access to your product in a region where they are absolutely going to be screaming for food new food products over the next 15 years. I put that as an aside it was an area where there's a bit of a flaw I think in the free trade agreement but what a set of outcomes. In the 10 years trade between Australia and the United States has almost doubled. Now a lot in Australia would be mildly critical of that because while it has doubled it is pretty evident that the principal beneficiary of it has been in direct terms the United States where there's a 24 billion trade balance in their favour. I know the US has a trade balance of a significant proportion better than that with anyone. So some people in Australia say hey look look at that that's not a good thing but when you actually look in the inwardness of the thing both in the trade area and investment you see that the two elements of that free trade agreement coming through and that is it's made easier made it easier for the United States to supply the kit and the cash for what has been the boom area in Australian exports. It's probably not well known but the fourth largest trading partner of the president's home state is Australia basically because Illinois produces humongous amounts of mining kit and that ends up in Australia that is has been underpinning the huge development of Australian mining operations but particularly in the LNG area and then investment that is the extraordinary story of the free trade agreement. You've got a situation now where direct and indirect the US invests about 650 billion in Australia. Probably now that's interesting it's more than the US invests in China but the location of the areas where it invests the US is investing is in those areas which are leading elements of Australia's export performance. That's one thing that's interesting the second thing that's interesting is and I think more interesting is the impact that's had on Australian investment in the United States. It's now up to 470 billion and it's growing at the rate of about 30 billion a year. That's direct and indirect. Australian companies are surging to the United States on a highway made so much easier by the free trade agreement that was put in place. You know nothing the tap doesn't get turned on overnight when a free trade agreement like that it's put in place. So 10 years looking back is a good vantage point to actually do that and so we can and what we can see is that it has facilitated enormously investment both ways as well as of course trade both ways. So it's a it's hard for me to admit I'm actually a sort of global free trader. Where we came from and the governments I served in the 1980s so tended to see multilateral and sorry regional and bilateral agreements as essentially trade diversionary and we were we were WTO people big time what we've really got to get in place is a system of global free trade. We took enormous political risks to to try to get that position in place but we've had to I've had anyway personally to temper my assessment on when it sit down and take a look at what the impact of these bilateral agreements have been. The government signed up to three recently and they look to be really good quality agreements South Korea China and Japan and now with the the TPP potentially forthcoming they will produce something like those sorts of economic outcomes. So I'd have to say as I said there are areas where there'd be disputation on some of the points I've made in in an Australian context looking at the operation of the free trade agreement this has been an enormous success and those who negotiate it can be proud of what they achieved. Well let me turn to somebody who did have a role in that agreement. Wendy I'd love to hear your perspective on things. Well thank you very much Ernie and thank you very much Ambassador Beasley I really enjoyed your comments and just listening to you it really led me to have a moment of reflection that often at USTR even though we may be a little different than other people in the United States. We do operate at a very very busy and sometimes frenetic pace and we don't have opportunities really to sit and reflect on what we achieved in these trade agreements and how things have changed and what has happened over a period of the agreement. So to have you know a session like this 10 years later to really not only look and describe what was in the US Australia agreement but really what has happened to our economic relationship since that time and in that regard I can't I mean I would just endorse everything that Ambassador Beasley has said about the US Australia free trade agreement. It's really an agreement we would call win-win when we embarked on this negotiation in the early 2000s. Australia was one of the biggest trading partners that we approached it was after our free trade agreement negotiation with Singapore and then we moved on to Australia and there were a lot of challenges in this negotiation. I know for Australia there was some criticism at that time about certain aspects of the negotiation as well as in the United States but our trade negotiators were really able to work very hard and closely together to really shape a very meaningful agreement that not only produced and led to a tremendous increase in trade between the two countries but also as Ambassador Beasley has mentioned enormous investment flows between the two countries as well. From the US perspective we look at this free trade agreement and we consider it to be one of our most successful free trade agreements and we point to the increase in trade but also the increase in US exports which increased by 91% over the past 10 years. We also note that we're the number one investor in Australia now and we also note what we call some of these intangible benefits of trade agreements and that is that much of our trade investment is now driven by very high value added goods and services that really rely on the innovative abilities of our exporters from both countries and the growing interconnectedness of our supply chains between our countries has really supported the exchange of capital of technology and the free flow of goods and services and that has further served to deepen our economic relationship. Actually I think a decade of our subsequent agreements demonstrates how much we accomplished in 2004 and the bilateral data really show an important and impressive story. I would note that I know that there has been some criticism in Australia that Australia runs a bilateral deficit with us but when you really look at what comprises that is that Australia can argue that the deficit they have with us really fuels their surpluses with their Asian trading partners and that's a really I think important aspect of this agreement and really shows this notion of supply chains looking at where the competitiveness and complementary natures of our economies lie. Now 10 years later we find ourselves again working very hard together but working hand in hand and I remind myself that before Japan joined the TPP a year and a half ago the US and Australia were the largest two economies in TPP. We have both individually and jointly played a very important leadership role in the TPP negotiations and I would argue I think that's really reflects the strong and deep economic cooperation and ties that we developed have developed since the US Australia FTA came into effect. The Peterson Institute underscores did a study and many of you heard the statistics of what they point to in terms of US benefits from TPP including an increase of US exports of 123 billion dollars every year and it also points to an increase of Australian exports as well of a more limited nature but Australia does have FTAs with a lot of the TPP partners except for I think Canada Mexico and Peru but I would also argue that through the TPP Australia really has the opportunity to gain more mark at access and to gain more benefits from the rules that are negotiated with countries where they already already have FTAs because the TPP will build on many of their FTA commitments to date particularly with countries like Japan. In terms of TPP there's I'm sure you're all wondering where the negotiations stand today and let me just briefly turn back the clock to December when the APEC leaders got together in Beijing excuse me in November and President Obama and Prime Minister Abbott and other TPP leaders took note of the tremendous progress that our negotiators have made and really committed themselves as to concluding this deal as soon as possible recognizing the importance of getting the strategic and economic benefits that this agreement will provide in place as soon as possible and since that time we've been working very hard with at all levels of the negotiations we have been meeting in small groups in certain issue areas we've had a chief negotiators meeting in November and our chief negotiators are about to take off for Hawaii next week and all of the momentum that was really provided from the APEC leaders meeting continues to to provide opportunities to build on the momentum at these various meetings in the meantime the United States and Japan have been working very hard on our bilateral negotiations both on agriculture and market agriculture market access but also the automotive issues and we've been making good progress with Japan as well and finally I think our TPP partners have taken note of really the stepped up debate in Washington on trade both in the administration at the highest levels but also in our Congress we've explained to our TPP partners that TPA is a domestic procedure just like our TPP partners have domestic procedures like an election like a change in government and we will deal with that domestically but we also know that as our TPP partners contemplate challenging political decisions that TPP will require that other TPP countries are encouraged to see that trade is peering poise to move forward in Congress and once again this has provided even additional momentum to the negotiations which we are continuing to build on so once again our negotiators will be leaving for Hawaii they will continue to make as much progress as they can in narrowing the outstanding issues and really trying to be in a place to have the set of issues where political decisions need to be made and so they can tee those up for ministers we envision that the TPP ministers will be getting together soon you may ask me when and the answer is it has not been scheduled we will need to see how what type of progress our negotiators make and so we can choose the appropriate and right time for our ministers to get together. Getting back to kind of our bilateral relationship I think once we complete the TPP the U.S. and Australia can work closely together to try and bring new members on to TPP including Korea where we both now have free trade agreements but also the Philippines and other ASEAN countries as well as as well as others but we also recognize that TPP is not the only game in town and that we need to keep in mind that is we're negotiating TPP that our other partners in the region including TPP partners are engaged in concluding trade agreements Australia in particular has been quite active concluding three free trade agreements in recent months with Japan, Korea and China and for me having spent a great deal of my quarter century career at USTR negotiating with these countries I understand what a tremendous accomplishment this has been for Australia. Australia is also a member of the RCEP negotiations along with six other TPP members which I understand just completed its seventh round of negotiations and we'll meet again in the spring. We don't see any of these negotiations as mutually exclusive but we do strongly believe that the high standards of TPP is the best way to go and one that best reflects the 21st century issues as well as US values and further we believe that once the agreement is completed with the 12 that others will seriously contemplate joining and we encourage Australia to press hard for high standards in these and other negotiations as well our ability to press other countries in the region to adopt high standard TPP commitments will in part depend on or demonstrating that we see these as fundamental to our future vision of the region. Allow me to conclude with a quotation from the president when he visited Brisbane last November for the G20 meetings and he said Australia really is everything you want in an ally we're cut from the same cloth we're immigrants from an old world who built a new nation and we share that same spirit of confidence and optimism that the future is ours to make and I would say that's just to conclude that's really evident on the economic front whether it be in the WTO whether it be an APEC whether it be in implementing or bilateral negotiation bilateral agreement or working on TPP the close and deep relationship we have with Australia and really the optimism and I would add the good humor that they bring to these negotiations really makes it a pleasure to work with our Australian counterparts most of the time and we look and we really look forward to continuing that cooperation particularly in in the end game of the TPP negotiations where a close relationship between the US and Australia is really vital thank you thank you that's excellent now when you mentioned and Kim you implied some new energy in town here in Washington around the political discussion about trade and and specifically trade in general and TPP specifically um maybe I'll start with you Kim because I saw you tweeted yesterday that you were up on the hill with Senator Wyden so that's public record what do you see I mean you're engaging key members of the Senate and House of the Politics of Trade started to change in Washington uh yes but there's this is a complex town and uh it's a it's a sort of real fighting town and um the and one of the things I respect as a fellow has served a long time in Australian politics I respect enormously members of the Senate and the House of Representatives in Australia we operate a Westminster system and we can hide behind party and caucus that's uh that's of enormous benefit when you're individually confronting your constituents when you have a constituency that understands when you say well look Fred I tried really hard to get this matter up at the last caucus meeting but they didn't agree with me and of course I'm therefore bound to vote with them when the matter comes before the parliament the average Australian constituent will understand that completely they won't like it but they live with it you can't do this in the United States there is nowhere to hide for an American congressman a senator nowhere so I have real respect for those who are prepared to take a step forward on something which is controversial um I think there is a real will in Congress to do something but that will to a degree is countered by the weight the weight of effort out there to block them to argue special cases to argue argue propositions which you know are showstoppers but seem to uh there to be a reasonable explanation to the public that really you're for something when you know very well that what you're for is going to destroy what you say you're going to be for and uh so this is uh I mean the the American congressman swim on trade matters in a sea of crocodiles and they are really it's going to be really tough for them but I would say this that having been here for five years now there's no doubt in my mind that the atmosphere is better for this at the moment than it's been at any time did you want to comment Wendy yeah I would just underscore that you know there is this is a really exciting time to work on trade both when I travel around the world now there's you know we have a very active and busy trade agenda but the debate in Washington too is very focused on trade and the administration is working hard with Congress to move to encourage a bipartisan trade promotion authority bill to move through Congress as quickly as possible at the same time we are moving and working very hard to wrap up the TPP negotiations recognizing the enormous economic and strategic benefits that they offer and really wanting to get these benefits into place as soon as possible can you talk a little bit about the politics of trade in other and in the other countries I mean how do you do you think the the members the other I guess since both of you are here the other 10 members are keeping a pace with this energy or do you see you see as we near the final negotiations do you see countries under a lot of pressure and can you talk about that a little bit well you're in the negotiations yeah I would say yes to everything but no you there is a real sense of not only momentum but that we are in the endgame and you can see this because issues for example that for years have not you know countries have not moved on countries are beginning to really move on these issues and we're really narrowing the issues I can say in our negotiations with Japan we've had two rounds of negotiations with them since their lower house election and in each meeting with them we are really you know making significant progress now that's not to say it's easy and what we've all learned is you narrow issues yeah there are fewer issues but they're really really tough and so that's what increasingly we're focused on in the negotiations but we sense you know across the table among our 11 other training partners once again a real commitment and a real urgency to trying to get this deal done as quickly as possible I think there's absolutely agree with that I think they say there's a wood for the trees argument in all countries the US is no different from anyone else in that regard they constitutionally these things manifest themselves differently in each of the societies but the the motivation the fears the concerns are much the same at at each end of it and that is to there is a it's very easy particularly at this phase in the negotiations to get bogged down on the individual difficulty that is as Wendy says the closest approximator to a showstopper what's really important in this in Australia in the US in Japan Vietnam elsewhere is so what do you actually really want we're not working here in a vacuum there are going to be trade agreements and practices that dominate Asian trade over the course of forever and they are being negotiated now and they will come in place they are coming in place this is not the TPP is not going to be find itself in a situation well if we don't come to a conclusion on this then actually nothing's going to happen so we can sit down think again and come to another conclusion no that's not going to happen somebody is going to determine the rules of trade in Asia everybody really who knows anything about it really recognises in their heart of hearts that this is the high quality thing this this is the one that actually means that the process to wealth for the burgeoning middle classes of Asia and of course of the other signatories in in South America Australia and the US this is a chance to take a step forward to substantial capacity for prosperity and that's not that you won't be prosperous it will be but you won't be as prosperous as you would be and it won't have the longevity and the sustainability and the sense of equity unless you have something like the TPP rules so this is a I actually think when you might disagree with I actually think it's more important than the United States even than any of the other countries because you see the United States knows that it lives that it's had that in its mind those sorts of things in their minds as they struggled against the perversion of international trade by imperial preference so it's there in the American genes others know it too but if this does not succeed it will be a very bad day for the principles of international trade that the United States has struggled for for a century. Well said one I have one more question before I go to the audience and that's when we started these negotiations or I more precisely when the United States joined there was a lot of talk about China feeling not included or that this was somehow an economic version of containment but that seems to that narrative seems to have changed would you agree and where do you think China stands on on TPP now. Yeah the narrative definitely has changed and I think part of the reason it changed and part of the reason this agreement got a lot more attention in the region was after Japan joined and once Japan joined you had the you know two large economies in the region with the other TPP countries representing 40% of GDP this agreement just took on a whole new dimension in the region and we did see in the press but also in our conversations with China a real change in attitude and change in perception about the TPP. We have been updating China on the negotiations during our various meetings with China and you know they seem genuinely interested in what's going on in the agreement and also interested in in the substance of what we're negotiating as well and so we look forward to continuing to update China as well as other countries that are not today that are not part of TPP and we think that is important because TPP is it's not about keeping certain countries out of TPP it's basically an agreement of like-minded countries that came together because they wanted to and so it's not like an exclusive club where either you're invited or you're not invited it's really a group of countries once again coming together wanting to achieve a high standards agreement and wanting to really set the rules for the Asia-Pacific region for the foreseeable future. Yeah what's your perspective? Look when I came here I've got this five-year perspective. There's no doubt at all the Chinese are hostile to it. They bracketed it with a whole range of practices that they saw as part of a strategic encirclement you know all the concerns that they have as a rising power wondering how other powers are going to relate to it and whether or not the global system and the regional system more particularly can produce outcomes that are accord both with their interests and their status. They have changed substantially and that is obvious. They don't conduct conversations like that anymore whatever might appear in the press from time to time that is not part of the structure of a Chinese discussion with us on these sorts of arrangements. There is no doubt at all as shrewd players and as people who understand their benefit of enormously from the economic system put in place at Bretton Woods and subsequently that the rules of the road need to be understood and if they're good quality rules of the road you actually have to adjust to it. So the I would say that if this is successfully negotiated over the next decade you'll see various countries finding themselves in a position to sign up to it and one of them will be China. Excellent. Let me open the floor for questions. Tom. Thank you. I'm a Tom Reprever of the Malaysia America Society and I'd like to follow up on one of Ernie's questions about the politics of negotiating in some of the TPP countries specifically Canada, Mexico, and yes Malaysia. Politics. I mean you know all TPP countries are facing political challenges as we try to conclude this deal. Each country has sensitivities and you know their other trading partners are asking them to move on them. Many countries have very active legislatures and active stakeholders, vocal stakeholders, and so they you know they are facing political challenges in their country. Certain TPP countries as negotiations are going on for five years almost all these TPP countries have had elections during that time and that also faces challenges but what's so I think special about TPP or what makes it you know it so important is that we've been able to all the countries to kind of make it through these political challenges to focus on the negotiations to focus on our goal and to keep trying to move forward and to build on the momentum that has been achieved in the negotiations. Look I, the politics in each country are fraught in its own different way, different ways and you know there's forces for and against and most of them are negotiating partners to this agreement and most of them have capacities to see that democratically expressed. So there's this the day to day media coverage will be of the opposition. There's in the main. There's no doubt about that. So sometimes you're going to get quite frightened by that or worried or depressed or whatever. These countries signed up on them. They signed up on the basis they wanted to sit down with the rest of us and do a high quality deal. Everyone who signed it both those three and the others who are party to it understood really at the end of the day this would probably run into its greatest difficulties not on the 21st century components of agreement but the 20th century. It's it's the old agenda on at market access that that really creates the problems because there are well founded interest groups around a lot of those issues in every country and and in and at those interest groups some will be dead opposed to a global free trader system and and be highly protectionist. Some of them will actually be supportive but want advantage and and there's nothing there's no difference in those countries and the domestic experience of the US and of Australia slightly different in the case of the US is that in that as often happens in these situations once the US is in it it has to be the driver it sort of is like a magnet that attracts filings to it so there it tends to be a what starts out as a sort of across-the-board table becomes a table that sort of starts to concentrate you know concentrate itself to the roast turkey in the middle it's not to say the US is a roast turkey but the let's say it's so it's and everybody when they start to develop their criticisms in the end make it a point not the criticism of doing business with somebody else but of doing business with the US so it's that US which puts an enormous burden on the the American negotiators keep the thing going in all these circumstances the situation in the countries you know is no different from that than the others if i can just add to that i agree that there are a number of market access issues in particular that you know really strike on core sensitivities and certain TPP partners but also if you take a step back some of these 21st century rules are also causing concern in countries as well because in many ways we're writing trade rules in areas that have not been subject to trade rules so whether it's state-owned enterprises or how we're going to deal with changes in the digital economy or even how we're going to deal with wildlife trafficking in a trade agreement all of these issues are issues that are really important to the TPP make it a 21st century agreement and also in certain cases lead to either opposition or concern at home and part of the concern is just the unknown and some of the discussions we have in TPP is trying to kind of work through putting rules on these new areas and the challenges that it presents and also just from a bureaucratic perspective the different kind of ministries and the different interests that are now being being increasingly brought into a trade negotiation we have a question from twitter and i just wanted to give a give a honor to that peter davidson from somewhere asked if hi peter if you how do you differentiate the TPP from other FTAs and the GATT do you differentiate it or is it an extension of well well i would and i'd differentiate it really in the areas that wendy was just talking about it is addressing issues that generally speaking in trade agreements you wouldn't certainly in bilateral ones you wouldn't bother with you're unlikely in a bilateral free trade agreement to talk about the character of participation in the system of state-owned enterprises for example there's a there's a range of things which are being caught up in this which is which are interesting in the sense that it really could well form the basis in a way that other agreements couldn't of an advanced effective trading system capable of being taken out of the asian context and rendered global it's a wto style agreement in the of the 21st century instead of the 20th a wto style agreement that could work itself back into the wto system and you couldn't actually say that most of the bilateral agreements it doesn't go to you agree with that yeah i would add also add we you know we really should emphasize that it's a regional agreement and it's about creating supply chains among the participants in the agreement recognizing that trade you know is no longer is less and less conducted you know between country x and country y but typically products or services move around a group of countries and what we're doing in tpp is really breaking new ground in terms of recognizing this regional component and trying to you know establish a system that really facilitates trade among the participants and of course unlike the gat or a multilateral agreement this by definition is what we call a preferential trade a trade agreement which means that the preferences won't be provided to all to all countries they'll be provided to the countries that are part of the agreement yeah okay one more question right here hi nadia chow with liberty times from taiwan wendy our economic ministers came to washington two weeks ago i think he really expressed his interest to join dpp i wonder you know for you is there any outstanding issue that has to be resolved before the negotiation like tfa talk will be resumed this year anytime soon for china i mean uh after china joined dpt we still see very contentious dispute with the us you know even though both sides has been in that organization for a long time so for tpp do you think china is really ready for you know a totally different new tradecraft thank you well first let me um just say more generally that the tpp countries right now are focused on working among themselves with the current 12 countries to conclude the agreement with the entry of the last three countries canada mexico and japan they're well integrated into the negotiation and now we're working hard with the 12 to conclude the agreement but as i mentioned in my remarks we see tpp as an open platform and we really envision other countries and economies joining tpp over time there is a process for this and for the united states that has meant that we typically will conduct bilateral consultations following intense stakeholder and congressional outreach and in our consultations with the candidate economy or country we want to make sure that that candidate understands in detail what they'll be expected to do if they join the negotiations so kind of like there's just no you know no surprises that the expectations are clear we also look to really address bilateral issues of concern we did this with japan canada and mexico before they joined and that's really an important part for the united states so we can build up the domestic support for new candidates in the negotiation did you want to comment look i agree with i think we're down to the last 12 when we're very close to the end of the negotiation now so the notions of other people joining at this point of time that's we're past that so we it's going to await the conclusion of it and then assuming that successful conclusion it's going to be a question of how people join from that point on you don't just simply sign a box you would have to conduct a negotiation with the parties and the way this will work out very importantly one with the united states but all the parties operate on the assumption that given a successful outcome to those discussions we want everybody in well we have a at least another hour of discussion we could do here but and if we want these two to come back i'm going to have to keep them on time with their schedules even with the snow so please join me in thanking our our discussions today thank you very much