Secretary John Kerry Invites Russia and China into TPP

In an interview with Russian interstate channel Mir TV, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry invited China and Russia to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

 

“We invite people to come join other initiatives, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP. We welcome China, we welcome Russia, we welcome other countries who would like to join, as long as they want to raise the standards and live up to the highest standards of protecting people and doing business openly and transparently and accountably,” said Secretary Kerry.

 

The TPP is a proposed “trade” pact negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam) representing 40 percent of global GDP. On October 5, 2015, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that the United States and the 11 other participating Pacific Rim nations had reached a final agreement on the TPP.

 

Mir TV filmed the televised interview on November 2, 2015, in Astana, Kazakhstan, during Secretary Kerry’s tour of Central Asia. An official English transcript of the interview was made available by the State Department online.

 

Kerry’s formal invitation of TPP membership to Communist China and Russia further corroborates what we in The New American magazine, both online and in print, have reported on numerous occasions: The plan of those promoting the TPP has been to include both China and Russia from the start. (See here, here, here, and here).

 

On August 23, 2013, in “Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim,” The New American reported:

 

The TPP, which currently involves 12 nations — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam (Japan is negotiating for membership and is likely to join soon) — is really intended as an interim arrangement, on the road to an expanded Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) that would include all 21 nations of the grouping known as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). That includes China and Russia. [Emphasis added].

 

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