Trade Representative Michael Froman speaks at the launch of the National Foreign Trade Council’s centennial celebration on Tuesday evening at the President Woodrow Wilson House in Washington. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
“We are at a pivotal point in our trade policy [but] nothing can proceed without TPA,” Trade Representative Michael Froman said Tuesday evening, referring to trade promotion authority.

In a speech celebrating the National Foreign Trade Council centennial, Froman noted that the World Trade Organization had reached its first agreement in its 19-year history in December.

He also said “We are very much in the end game” of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, and that on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks, U.S. and European Union negotiators have reached the point of talking about areas of disagreement.

The event was held at the President Woodrow Wilson House, the president former home that is now a museum owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Froman observed that Wilson convened the national foreign trade convention that launched the NFTC as an organization devoted to rules-based trade. He also noted that Wilson had included free navigation of the seas and free trade in his famed “Fourteen Points” speech.

• President Woodrow Wilson House
• President Wilson’s Fourteen Points Speech to Congress — January 8, 1918

National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch, right, poses with an actor portraying Woodrow Wilson at the NFTC centennial launch Tuesday night at the President Woodrow Wilson House. (Tony Brown/imijphoto.com)