US encourages Japan to look at trans-Pacific multinational trade pact

Japan is debating whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact being negotiated by nine nations including the United States, but the government faces strong opposition from farmers.

Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said that Japan and the United States needed to find new areas for cooperation and that the trade agreement was a “potential venue.”

“We need to have a conversation — a more straight-forward conversation — with friends like Japan about how we can find areas that we can work together” on, Campbell told a conference of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council.

The United States has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan, which has had a new prime minister each year since 2006, although many Japanese welcomed the rapid U.S. response to its tsunami and nuclear crisis.

“I'm struck that sometimes when we meet we have huge challenges that we deal with, like how to respond to the nuclear challenge,” said Campbell, who will visit Japan next week on a regional tour.

“We need to find areas — positive, outward, engaged initiatives — where the United States and Japan can chart a new course, not just strategically but economically,” he said.

Japan would be the second largest economy in the Trans-Pacific Partnership if it joined. The United States — along with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam — hope to announce a framework on the deal at an Asia-Pacific summit in November in Hawaii.

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