Food Safety Concerns within the Trans Pacific Partnership

Food Safety and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Steven Jordan, GIC Group

            With the recent approval of Trade Promotion Authority legislation, the passage of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) seems almost inevitable. While the proposed trade agreement has sparked an intense debate on several issues, food safety concerns remain unresolved.

Critics of the TPP have been very vocal in their opposition, citing the secrecy in which the negotiations have been conducted. According to congressional sources, there is a chapter within the provisions of TPP that address SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) measures, known as the SPS provisions within WTO (World Trade Organization). WTO now has responsibility for international SPS standards and compliance. According to our source, the TPP goes beyond current requirements, referred to as WTO Plus Standards, ensuring that nations provide science-based and internationally recognized standards, and that these measures are created in a transparent manner. The TPP doesn’t change the United States or any other participating nation’s food safety standards or laws, but does require them to be based on sound science and international standards.

            The opposition to the trade deal has expressed concern about the dilution of the U.S.’s Food Safety Modernization Act, however our sources confirmed the participation of both the Food and Drug Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture in the negotiations, and that both agencies support what has been put on the table. Goals for agencies participating in the negotiations are that the obligations detailed within the TPP are enforceable, so that current and new food safety standards ‘move from an aspirational ideal to a national obligation.’ The goal of the TPP is to reduce tariffs and other similar barriers to trade, which raises concerns over the possibility of increased seafood originating in Vietnam for instance, where past shipments have been a prime source of cargo rejections. Congressional sources in support of TPP maintain that with stiff surveillance in the US, there may be a shift to less regulated markets such as China.  In their view, the manner in which the FDA addresses the issues of food safety will not change as a result, and importers will still be held just as accountable as ever.