Reuters — The U.S. administration hopes to release the full text of a Pacific trade deal within the next 30 days, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in an interview with CNN.
The U.S. sealed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 trading partners this week, after more than five years of negotiations.
“The lawyers are working right now to finalize the text and to prepare it for release. We hope to get it out within the next 30 days,” Froman said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, to be broadcast on Sunday, according to a transcript.
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Under a timetable laid out by the U.S. Congress, the text of any trade deal should be made public 30 days after the administration notifies Congress that it intends to sign it. President Barack Obama can sign the deal 60 days after the text is made public.
Froman also brushed off criticism of the TPP, a central plank of the administration’s pivot to Asia, by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, who backed the developing trade pact when she was secretary of state during Obama’s first term, said on Wednesday: “The bar here is very high and, based on what I have seen, I don’t believe the agreement has met it.”
Froman said he did not want to comment on presidential politics but said the deal was of a “very high standard.”
“I’m convinced as the people sit down and take the time to go through it in detail, that they’ll come to a positive judgment,” he said.
— Reporting for Reuters by Krista Hughes.
