Controversial Trans-Pacific pact to take stage at Kansas State Fair

One of 2016’s slipperiest political footballs, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, will be bounced around on stage by congressional leaders at the Kansas State Fair next month.

WIBW radio in Topeka has arranged for the chairmen of both the Senate and House agriculture committees, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, to take to the Bretz and Young Arena stage Sept. 10 for an agricultural forum with Allen Featherstone, head of the Kansas State University Department of Agricultural Economics.

One issue certain to be explored in the forum will be the TPP, a pact designed to ease tariff and trade restrictions and create a more common market among 12 Pacific Rim nations, said Kelly Lenz of WIBW and the Kansas Agricultural Network, who will moderate the forum.

Opposition to partnership has been a rallying point in the 2016 campaign, especially for supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Those two slammed the plan as a giveaway that will cost jobs in the United States by forcing workers here to compete more with low-wage labor in some of the partnership’s member countries.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton supported the agreement as President Obama’s secretary of state but walked that back on the campaign trail, saying she’d like to see some portions of the deal renegotiated if she becomes president.

Lenz said the deal is of major importance to the embattled Kansas grain and cattle-feeding industries because it would reduce trade barriers and make it easier to export Kansas food products to the Asian Pacific markets.

Congressional ratification of agreement, a top priority for Obama during the waning days of his administration, “would put $4.5 billion into farmers’ pockets,” Lenz said.

One of the biggest impacts for Kansas would be reducing tariffs on exporting beef to Japan, he said. That country protects its own beef producers by levying a 34 percent tariff on U.S. beef imports. Under the Trans-Pacific deal, the tariff would drop to the 15-20 percent range.

“That’s going to be a huge benefit for beef producers,” Lenz said.

While most congressional Republicans and some Democrats favor the Trans-Pacific deal, its chance of passage has been hampered by the presidential election. Trump has called it a “terrible deal” that he wants to abandon, while Clinton’s misgivings could require a lengthy renegotiation of the pact.

The countries that would be included in the deal are Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and Brunei.

It is rare for the chairmen of both the House and Senate agriculture committees to appear on the same stage and Lenz said he expects the State Fair forum to be closely watched in Washington as well as in the heartland.

“They’re going to be monitoring this program for hints Conaway and Roberts are looking at something,” he said.

The forum will begin at 11 a.m. and will be broadcast live on WIBW radio and the Kansas Agriculture Network stations. It will be live-streamed at www.wibwnewsnow.com and www.kansasagnetwork.com.

This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Controversial Trans-Pacific pact to take stage at Kansas State Fair."