News Analysis: Hawaii failure casts shadow over TPP prospects

The future of a trans-Pacific free trade deal coveted by the United States as part of its "pivot" towards Asia has once again been called into question after the latest round of negotiations stumbled in Hawaii.

The outstanding thorny issues invited questions into the indiscriminate "high standards" regarding purposes and principles of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which involves 12 nations at different levels of development.

Yet in an extraordinarily brief statement, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman insisted that significant progress had been made in the recent four-day ministerial meeting on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

He vowed to resolve "a limited number of remaining issues" in following talks, but did not mention when the next meeting would be held.

Already eight years in the making, the ambitious trade deal, involving Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam, would encompass 40 percent of global trade once it came into being.

However, a lot of issues remain to be solved, with dairy market access and intellectual property rights leading a string of intricate subjects that also include auto trade, workers' rights and environmental protection.

"You can see clearly that there are one or two really hard issues, and one of them is dairy," New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said.

As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper faces re-election in October, Canada has been reluctant to significantly open its market to more dairy imports, which frustrates dairy producers in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

While the United States and Japan have said they are getting close to clinching a deal, the two biggest players in the TPP bargaining have not yet completed their bilateral market access negotiations over agriculture and autos. That part is essential for the overall TPP negotiations to be concluded.

In terms of rules on intellectual property rights, the big question of whether other TPP countries will agree to the U.S. demand for 12 years of data protection for biological medicines is still open, according to media reports.

Japanese Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Akira Amari mentioned that another meeting would be held in late August, as the TPP would be mired in further obscurity should the talks drift into September.

U.S. President Barack Obama has to notify Congress 90 days before signing a trade agreement, and failure to reach a deal in the coming weeks could raise questions about the Obama administration's ability to get the TPP deal passed in Congress before the 2016 presidential campaign heats up.

Should it be caught in the nasty electoral politicking, the TPP, central to the Obama administration's policy of advancing economic engagement in Asia, could become campaign fodder against the Democratic Party.

The initiative has met criticism in the United States, and opposition was also found among Obama's fellow Democrats. "This setback to the TPP in Maui shifts the momentum in the national debate," House Democrat and TPP opponent Rosa DeLauro said.

"The impasse highlights very troubling issues for anyone concerned about the future of the American middle class," she said.

In addition, the TPP has been criticized for neglecting the interests of the developing countries and adhering to a "zero-sum" mentality.

Moreover, some U.S. experts have mentioned that the TPP trade deal would be "a failed agreement" without China's participation.

"China is the largest economy in Asia. We need it to be part of the TPP," said Tami Overby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's senior vice president for Asia. Endi