Trade pact deal eludes Obama in Japan

WASHINGTON – While failing to seal a deal on his ambitious plan to expand trade in the Pacific Rim, President Obama on Thursday said a long-stalled trade pact still can be finalized if Japan opens its markets and accepts more U.S. exports of everything from cars to farm goods.

"That's my bottom line, and I can't accept anything else," Obama said at a news conference in Tokyo.

After meeting privately with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the president said that "important progress" had been made in trying to wrap up the deal, adding: "I continue to believe we can get this done."

In Washington, opponents celebrated the lack of a final agreement of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as the TPP, Obama's effort to broker the largest trade pact in U.S. history.

After many setbacks, "TPP should be ready for burial," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, a group that opposes the deal.

U.S. business groups, which have lobbied for the trade agreement for four years, vowed to press on.

"The talks are alive and well, with more to be done, and they will be done," said Cal Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, a group of leading U.S. international business enterprises promoting the trade pact. He added the negotiations "are a marathon, not a sprint."

Negotiators for the United States and Japan had scrambled to try to close a deal in advance of Obama's four-nation visit to Asia, leading to high expectations on both sides.

In the end, the details again proved too intractable.

While exact minutia of the talks remain private, one of the biggest hurdles remaining is getting Japan and the United States to agree on tariffs for cars and crops.

In the United States, critics worry that Obama's trade negotiators may lower or abandon automobile tariffs to win greater access to Japan's markets for beef and pork, rice, dairy, sugar and wheat products. That would allow more Japanese cars to enter the U.S. at lower cost, angering the domestic auto industry.

At his news conference, Obama said it was time for the two nations to take "bold steps" to reach an agreement.

But the president added: "All of us have to move out of our comfort zones and not just expect that we're going to get access to somebody else's market without providing access to our own."

U.S. officials view the proposed deal as a potential gold mine for American businesses, with the 12 countries representing 40 percent of the global gross domestic product. And they say the opportunities will only grow, with Asia's middle-class population, now at 500 million, set to explode in coming years.

Opponents fear the deal will chase more American jobs overseas and only benefit corporations.