Obama: Outlines of TransPacific Partnership trade deal reached
US President Barack Obama.
This year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit has shown signs of both progress and obstacles for President Barack Obama who is hosting the conference in his birthplace of Honolulu.
Obama said Saturday the outlines of the TransPacific Partnership trade agreement have been developed and is predicted to be approved by the nine APEC members involved: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.
China has not expressed interest in joining the TPP talks while Japan announced Friday it would like to be involved. If Japan is included in the talks, the partnership would be 40 percent larger than the 27-nation EU, according to Reuters.
Despite the united efforts by members of APEC to reach a deal under TPP, Obama has struggled to gain similar traction over America’s effort to block Iran from producing nuclear weapons.
More from GlobalPost: Obama urges China and Russia to support US pressure on Iran (VIDEO)
While Obama said China and Russia share the same belief that Iran should not build nuclear arms, they have expressed they would oppose any new sanctions against the country. Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhan reported:
"This was President Obama's first face-to-face meeting with Hu and Medvedev since the IAEA report came out. The US believes that it needs China and Russia to get on board with sanctions and it was fairly clear … that he did not get any reassurances.”
More from GlobalPost: UN releases report on Iran nuclear program
The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week saying there is “significant evidence” Iran has been secretly implementing a nuclear weapons program. Culhan noted that Russia and China would most likely not be swayed from their stance despite the IAEA report.
More from GlobalPost: China: Iran shouldn’t be sanctioned
Iran has vehemently denied the report released by the UN nuclear watchdog, criticizing the IAEA for bowing under US pressure. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in Iran:
This nation won't retreat one iota from the path it is going. Why are you ruining the prestige of the [UN nuclear] agency for absurd US claims?
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