BIDEN TALKS TRADE WITH KIWI LEADER: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit the White House today with an agenda that includes boosting trade relations across Asia. That will entail discussion of Biden's newly launched Indo-Pacific Economic Framework , which New Zealand agreed to negotiate last week along with 13 other countries. But Ardern has also been a vocal proponent of Biden making a return to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the pact that was brokered under former President Barack Obama and later abandoned by Trump amid bipartisan backlash to sprawling, multinational trade deals. "If the United States is looking to engage in our region economically, then that is the place to do it," Ardern told reporters last week after meetings on Capitol Hill. She called CPTPP the "gold standard" just two days after Biden's big economic framework kickoff. That's a message she may well carry into her meetings today with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Ardern is not alone in her advocacy. Other key U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia, Singapore and Japan, have also expressed a desire for the U.S. to rejoin CPTPP. And at the recent US-ASEAN Summit in Washington, some Southeast Asian leaders also expressed a desire for Biden to do more to increase trade. But Biden's top trade officials are still haunted by voters' rebuke of trade deals in the 2016 election cycle. They have turned their thumbs down to the idea of joining the CPTPP, especially in its current form, and cited political backlash as a key reason their economic framework does not include much-desired market access provisions. Even former Trump staffers see that as a mistake. "I still don't understand why they didn't put market access on the table," said Kelly Ann Shaw, a former Trump senior trade adviser who is now a partner at law firm Hogan Lovells. "It diminishes the credibility in the eyes of our trading partners about how serious the administration really is about negotiating new rules that result in binding commitments." Though Trump pulled out of what was then the Trans-Pacific Partners, Shaw said it would be a "huge mistake" for Biden not to try to get back in. "TPP was a flawed agreement, and the politics weren't there to pass it in Congress at the time," Shaw said. "So, clearly the agreement would have to be renegotiated. But I think that that is possible. And I think that other CPTPP countries want us to come back to the negotiating table." Competition with China for influence in the Indo-Pacific should motivate Biden to re-enter the pact, proponents say. China is seeking to expand its own trade ties by applying to join the CPTPP. What's more, Beijing reacted with fury to Biden's economic framework last week and it was revealed just days later that China had drafted a trade and security agreement it wants 10 Pacific Island nations to sign. But that proposal seems to have been met with tepid enthusiasm at a meeting between China and Pacific Island leaders. The countries requested more time to review and negotiate the terms of the agreement, and some were skeptical of China's motives, Reuters reports. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's message to them: "Don't be too anxious and don't be too nervous." FACT CHECKING TRUMP ON HIS CHINA TRADE LEGACY: Former President Donald Trump sought to revise his track record on trade with China during a long and meandering speech at a political rally in Casper, Wyo., on Saturday. Trump cast his signature Phase One trade agreement with China as a "great deal" during the remarks and suggested he was more successful at managing relations with Beijing than the current White House because leaders there feared him. "China's not living up to their deal because they don't respect this administration," Trump said. "They were living up to it when I was there." But that's not actually true. The purchase commitments Beijing made in the Phase One deal — $200 billion in additional goods and services over two years — straddled both administrations and China was falling short the entire time, according to data compiled by Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. China had fulfilled less than 60 percent of its target purchase commitments by the end of 2020, the first year of the deal and the last year of Trump's presidency. Beijing did not make up any ground during the first year of the Biden administration, data show. USTR has since said Chinese officials have given no indication they will honor their end of the deal, which Trump negotiated without clear enforcement provisions. Holding grudges: Trump's rhetoric toward longtime U.S. allies and trading partners has not softened in his time away from the oval office. He told the Wyoming crowd that a tenet of "Trumpism" remains imposing tariffs on countries that, in his view, mistreat the U.S. on trade. "If countries want to take advantage of the United States, they must pay for the privilege of doing so. That will make us a rich nation," Trump said. "Again, because every country takes advantage of the United States." That includes the European Union, a relationship the Biden administration has sought to repair since Trump left office. "They screw us on trade, by the way, like almost nobody other than China," the former president told the audience. USTR EXTENDS TARIFF EXEMPTIONS ON HEALTH GOODS: The Biden administration on Friday said it will continue to exclude 81 health care product lines from the tariffs that Trump imposed on more than $350 billion worth of Chinese goods. Those exclusions, which cover goods such as blood pressure monitors, MRI patient enclosure devices and anesthesia masks, had been scheduled to expire today. They now expire on Nov. 30, although it's possible that USTR could decide later this year to extend them again. The Trump administration began temporarily excluding Chinese-made medical goods from the tariffs in March 2020, during the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. U.K. INKS TRADE DEAL WITH INDIANA: The British are pushing ahead with their state-based approach to trade with the U.S. On Friday, the U.K. signed an agreement meant to facilitate trade and investment with Indiana, POLITICO Europe's Sebastian Whale reports. The deal aims to remove trade and investment barriers and accelerate clean-tech development, such as electric vehicles, according to the British Department of International Trade. It will also seek to improve procurement processes, and strengthen academic and research ties. The U.K.'s international trade minister Ranil Jayawardena touted the arrangement on Twitter as "our first US state-level agreement!" And later, after a meeting with Australia's ambassador to the U.S., Jayawardena tweetedthat the deal is "being noticed by the international community." Still, it's very much a consolation prize. The British government has been hankering for a full-fledged free trade agreement with the U.S. since it broke off from continental Europe, but those talks were put on ice after Trump was booted from office. Oliver Griffiths, who led the 2020 trade negotiations for the U.K., told POLITICO Europe's Emilio Casalicchio that significant progress was made toward a final deal during six rounds of intensive negotiations. "I still have hope that it comes out of the drawer and that will be a strong basis for the two sides to push on in the future," Griffiths said. So far, the Biden administration has agreed to start trade "dialogues" that some observers are hopeful will lead to the resumption of negotiations, but the White House has been resistant to free trade agreements that would need congressional approval. LEAKED TEXT SHOWS VACCINE WAIVER TALKS STILL SHAKY: The World Trade Organization's ministerial conference is just two weeks away and diplomats are still scrambling to come up with an agreement for waiving intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines. A recently leaked working document dated May 25, which was posted to the website of a collaborative social justice platform focused on trade, indicates countries have proposed multiple changes and additions to the original text that emerged from discussions between South Africa, India, the U.S. and the EU. POLITICO has authenticated the text. Key decisions in flux: The leaked text is now several days old and some suggestions may have already been accepted or scrapped. But it shows where the fault lines remain as the ministerial draws near. Those include unresolved disagreements over fundamental aspects of the deal, such as the countries it will apply to and how long waivers will last.
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