The United States and Vietnam have agreed to intensify talks on a regional free-trade agreement in hopes of finishing by the end of the year, the US Trade Representative’s Office said on Wednesday, following a call by labour and human rights groups for negotiations with Hanoi to be suspended.
“Vietnam has come a long way in addressing its own challenges to meet the high standards of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), but we still have work to do together,” USTR Michael Froman said in a statement after a meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
Froman’s remark came shortly after a coalition of labour and human rights groups urged President Barack Obama on Wednesday to suspend free-trade negotiations with Vietnam because of concerns over that country’s treatment of workers and people who criticize the government.
“President Obama must hold Vietnam accountable for its record on worker and human rights before America rewards the country with greater trading privileges,” Teamsters union President James Hoffa said in a statement.
The demand came on the eve of a White House meeting between Obama and the Vietnamese president, and as the 18th round of regional free-trade talks among the United States, Vietnam and nine other countries were wrapping up in Malaysia. Japan joined this week as the 12th country in the talks.
The Obama administration hopes to finish those talks on the proposed TPP by the end of the year, and the concerns raised by the Teamsters, the Citizens Trade Coalition and Human Rights Watch were a preview of the likely debate in Congress over the agreement.