Mexico to join Pacific trade talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Cald

Back when Japan announced that it was interested in joining the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations - which currently include the United States, current US FTA partners Australia, Chile, Peru, and Singapore, new FTA partners Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam - I noted that admitting the economic power and close US ally was a no-brainer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is expected to announce U.S. support for Mexico to formally join negotiations on a regional free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific, industry sources said on Monday. Obama, who is in Los Cabos, Mexico for the Group of 20 nations meeting, is holding talks with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday morning. U.S. and Canadian industry sources said they expected Obama to announce on Monday that the United States supports Mexico's bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact. A spokeswoman for the U.S. ...

U.S. trade policy, hobbled for years by partisan bickering, has been reinvigorated with a new level of ambition and scope. President Barack Obama, considered a trade skeptic when he first came into office in 2008, is now pursuing free trade zones spanning both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.  

The big news of the day was that, as has been expected for the last week or so, Mexico has joined the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.  USTR formally announced the news this morning: 

Last night, I lamented the last four years of politics-driven US trade policy stagnation and the United States' abdication of its traditional role as the world's global trade leader.  My longwinded essay was admittedly light on links and examples, but did happen to finger Canada as one of several countries that have left the United States in the trade liberalization/leadership dust over the last few years.