Japanese farmers worry about potential damage from Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal

FUKUROI, Japan - Rice farmer Takao Terada isn’t following the U.S. presidential election too closely. But there’s one issue that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seem to agree on - that the U.S. should not ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact - and that’s music to his ears.
“We Japanese farmers can’t compete with the Americans. It costs us almost three times as much to produce rice,” he said last week, watching one of his eight workers sowing seedlings in a wet paddy here in Shizuoka prefecture, a two-hour train ride southwest of Tokyo. “TPP will drive down prices and allow in more imports, and that will be a big problem.”
The Obama administration has said the trade pact - which would bind together the American and Japanese economies with Australia, Mexico and eight other countries - would eliminate more than 18,000 tariffs on made-in-America products and “make sure our farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and small businesses can compete - and win - in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world.”
But Trump has called the trade pact a “horrible deal” that will “send America’s remaining auto jobs to Japan.” Clinton, meanwhile, shifted her stance last fall and she said she wasn’t sure that TPP as written would create jobs, raise wages or improve national security.
And in the Northland, U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Crosby, has been a vocal opponent of the pact, saying it would harm the U.S. mining and steel industries.
“The effects on our Minnesota Iron Range mining industry, and on our already depressed domestic steel industry would be devastating,” he said of the TPP last fall.
The opposition has cast a long shadow over the TPP, which took seven years to negotiate and is the biggest regional trade pact ever attempted, uniting countries accounting for 40 percent of global GDP. Partners including Japan are watching closely to see whether the U.S. will press ahead with the pact despite increasing political head winds.
California vintners, orchard owners and ranchers are among those who stand to benefit, according to the U.S. trade representative, because TPP would eliminate Japan’s tariffs on American wines, modestly increase Tokyo’s import quota on rice and eliminate taxes on produce including grapes, avocados, strawberries, kiwi fruit, watermelon and pomegranates, as well as nuts including pecans and almonds. Tariffs on beef, pork and dairy products also would drop or be eliminated.
TPP has yet to come into force because the pact must be ratified by at least six nations that account for 85 percent of the combined GDP of the 12 TPP nations. Given that the U.S. and Japanese economies are the two biggest in the pact, both must be on board for it to come into effect. But chances seem nil that Congress will ratify the agreement before the November election, and that has slowed momentum for a vote in Japan’s parliament as well.
Masatoshi Hirano, a kiwi farmer who lives a few miles from Terada in the town of Kakegawa, is another rural resident with concerns about TPP.
Although he believes the trade deal won’t have much effect on his business - which relies as much on ecotourism as it does fruit sales - Hirano worries the agreement could deliver a new blow to rural Japan, whose inhabitants already are being buffeted by powerful forces such as a rapidly aging society, population decline and a lack of interest among younger generations in toiling in the fields.
“Japanese farmers are key to taking care of the national landscape,” he said. “If they go away, what will happen?”
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been a proponent of TPP, even though he draws significant support from rural areas where many people are against the pact. Around Fukuroi, both anti-TPP and pro-Abe posters can be seen along the roadsides.
Abe has managed to retain the support of some farmers such as Terada, who said he’s not giving up his membership in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party even though he resents the fact that TPP seems to prioritize car companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other industries while giving Japanese farmers short shrift.
“I don’t like it, but the other parties are even less trustworthy,” he said. “Many farmers are resigned to this.”
Japan has about 2.5 million farm households, however, and if Abe senses that the U.S. is wavering, he may also be unwilling to expend further political capital to bring it to a vote in parliament first, Japanese analysts say.
“Japan is really split on the value of TPP, but we’ve put a lot of political capital into it,” said Ryo Sahashi, an associate professor of international politics at Kanagawa University. “If the U.S. suspends (the process), this will create a huge credibility issue for America in Asia.”
Obama and Abe have argued that the pact is crucial to maintaining U.S. leadership in Asia. “If we don’t pass this agreement - if America doesn’t write those rules - then countries like China will,” Obama warned last year.
Tsuyomi Masuda, president of the Yamama Masudaen tea company in Shizuoka prefecture, agreed that the U.S. and Japan need to step up and set standards through mechanisms such as TPP.
Masuda’s company, he noted, has received multiple international food safety certifications, including one known as ISO 22000.
“In China they say they have ISO standards like we do, but I can tell you if any Japanese inspector visited those factories there is no way he would approve it,” he said.
Masuda said he believed TPP would bring his company, which is increasingly export-oriented, more opportunities to sell its high-end tea leaves.
“Opening up new markets would be beneficial for us. TPP should be good for anyone who’s thinking about exports,” he said.