While all of us back here in Montana have been stuck in the middle of election year politics, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has been circling the globe.
Baucus is fresh off a trip to New Zealand where, according to The Hill, he met met Monday with New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key. Baucus was reportedly focusing on the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
That trip now continues on to Japan, as the headline at the ChicagoTribune.com reads, “Senator to Probe Japan on Asia-Pacific Talks.”
I’d like to see Japan participate (in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact), but it’s largely up to Japan,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told Reuters in a phone interview on his way to talks in Tokyo.
“I think there’s quite a strong sense of inevitability (to the agreement). It’s going to happen and therefore countries are likely to want to be on the train,” the Montana Democrat said ahead of meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and other senior Japanese officials.
Meanwhile, news from Japan this morning moved the markets back here in the United States. Today on our statewide radio talk show, I spoke with Don Gimbel, who was just on Bloomberg Radio the week before last. Gimbel manages over $1.5 billion in assets for Carret Asset Management from his Paradise Valley, Montana home office. Gimbel credited reports of last month’s trade deficit in Japan being much larger than forecast for moving the markets.
Click here to listen to Gimbel’s additional remarks on the Japanese economy.