U.S. trade representative confident Congress will approve Pacific trade deal

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed confidence that U.S. Congress will ultimately approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, which was reached between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries earlier this month.

"It is not a perfect agreement but I think at the end of the day when people dig into the details and learn about what's in there ... I'm confident we will have bipartisan support ultimately for its approval," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said at an event on TPP at the Atlantic Council.

Froman's remarks came as the Obama administration is facing pressure from trading partners, lawmakers and stakeholders to release the TPP text as soon as possible.

While more than five years of negotiations on the Pacific trade deal came to an end on Oct. 5, officials from the 12 TPP countries are still drafting parts of the final text of the agreement, which covers about 40 percent of global economic output.

"Right now, our focus is on getting the agreement out -- finalizing the details of it and getting it public, so people can read it, analyze it," Froman said.

The U.S. official said the Obama administration would work with the congressional leadership on the precise timing for introducing the legislation to implement the TPP deal, but he didn't give a specific timetable.

"We want to make sure we're taking all the necessary steps to have it ready when a window appears for Congress to take it up," he said.

While U.S. officials have touted the trade deal as a means to create jobs and write the rules of international trade, labor unions, environmental groups, consumer and heath care organizations across the country have come out against it out of various concerns.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said this month that she's "not in favor of" the TPP deal, noting that she doesn't believe the deal will meet her "high bar" for creating good American jobs, raising wages and advancing national security.

As the TPP could become one of the hot-button issues in the U.S presidential campaign, it will be very difficult for U.S. Congress to pass the trade deal next year, experts say.

Froman also pledged to speed up the pace of bilateral negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union.

"With TPP concluded, there is even greater focus on advancing the TTIP negotiations with the European Union. We are working to accelerate that process and just completed an important round in Miami," Froman said.

"When we complete TPP and TTIP, we'll have free trade with two-thirds of the global economy, making it easier to multilateralize high standards," he added. Enditem