U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will discuss how the United States
can deepen trade ties with fast-growing nations in Southeast Asia in talks this
week in Cambodia, U.S. trade officials said.
Kirk will join trade ministers
from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) at their annual
meeting on Thursday and take part in the inaugural ASEAN-U.S. Business Summit
focusing on innovation and the digital economy.
His trip is also likely to
include a stopover in Vietnam.
The visit sends an important
signal that President Barack Obama's administration is following through on
promises to increase economic engagement with the region, said Ernest Bower, an
expert on Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"I think Kirk will be pushed
to define what is the U.S. plan for economic engagement" in ASEAN, Bower
said.
In recent years, the United
States has been represented by Deputy Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis
at the annual ASEAN trade ministers meeting.
The 10 nations of ASEAN include
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, which together represent the fourth-largest trading
partner of the United States.
The United States is negotiating
a regional free trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
with 10 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including four from ASEAN:
Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Vietnam.
But it lacks a robust vehicle to
engage ASEAN as a region, unlike China, Japan and South Korea which are
negotiating the so-called ASEAN+3 pact, Bower said.
Kirk should use the meeting to
discuss ways to reinvigorate a forum known as the U.S.-ASEAN Trade and
Investment, which has been "moribund" for years, he said.
The United States sees the TPP as
a path to a long-envisioned Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, including all
21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group.
Indonesia, Thailand and the
Philippines are closely following the TPP negotiations, which could wrap up
some time in 2013, and are considered potential future members.
But since Myanmar, Laos and
Cambodia are not in APEC, they could never become members of the TPP unless the
United States and other TPP participants agree to expand membership to
countries outside of APEC.
Kirk is likely to visit Vietnam
after the ASEAN meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Vietnam is the least developed
country taking part in the TPP talks and faces the biggest challenges
implementing the commitments envisioned under the pact, Bower said.
Kirk's visit would be a show of
U.S. support for the "massive political and legal changes" Vietnam
would have to make under the TPP pact, Bower said.
Reuters
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