Franklin Vargo Vice President International Economic Affairs May 7, 2012 The Honorable Ron Kirk United States Trade Representative 600 17th Street, NW Washington, DC 20508 Dear Ambassador Kirk: We at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) appreciate your continued leadership on the broad range of trade issues that affect America’s manufacturers, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The NAM was one of the original supporters of having the United States join in the TPP negotiations, and views the TPP as the way forward to lower trade barriers to U.S. exports throughout the entire Pacific area. American producers face high tariffs and other barriers in Asian countries, and a robust Trans-Pacific agreement could significantly level the playing field for us. One of the most important objectives is encouraging additional trading partners to sign on to the TPP, increasing the scope and coverage of the agreement. Accordingly, we supported the expansion of the original negotiating partners to include Malaysia and Vietnam. More recently, we have urged consideration of adding Canada, Mexico, and Japan. The TPP negotiations, though, must result in a very high standard trade agreement, containing the best elements of our existing bilateral agreements. The TPP must be a “gold- standard” agreement. As the NAM related to USTR at the commencement of negotiations in 2009, the consensus of our membership is that the NAM’s support is conditioned on the outcome being the highest quality agreement. The NAM sees the goal for the TPP non-agricultural market access negotiations as being the elimination of at least 90 percent of the tariffs on our manufactured goods exports immediately upon implementation. Since American manufacturers already have duty-free access to Australia, Chile, Peru, and Singapore, and since the Brunei market is limited in size, the NAM’s market access attention is particularly focused on Malaysia and Vietnam – and Vietnam’s 86 million consumers comprise a market potentially three times the size of Malaysia’s. That market potential is presently limited by Vietnam’s nearly 10 percent average import duty on American manufactured goods, which makes up-front tariff elimination extremely important. Leading Innovation. Creating Opportunity. Pursuing Progress. th 733 10 Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001 P 202•637•3144 F 202•637•3182 www.nam.org The Honorable Ron Kirk May 7, 2012 Page 2 In that regard, the government of Vietnam needs to understand it will be held to the same standard of performance as the other partners and will not get special and differential treatment because of its developing country status. Our view is that if countries are not willing to agree to the high standard that we see as necessary for this agreement, they should not be in the negotiations; and we hope that U.S. negotiators have made that point firmly. We welcomed Vietnam’s entry into the TPP process, and look forward to the successful outcome of negotiations with Vietnam so that America’s manufacturers can soon gain entry into what we believe will be one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Sincerely, Frank Vargo cc: The Honorable Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State The Honorable John Bryson, Secretary of Commerce The Honorable Michael Froman, Assistant to the President His Excellency Cuong Quoc Nguyen, Ambassador of Vietnam .