Trade ministers from 12 Pacific Rim nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement pose for a group photo at a meeting in Lahaina, Hawaii on Thursday, July 30, 2015.

Japan’s economic minister says he thinks a deal can be reached with one more meeting.

This meeting could be the final round of negotiations on the broad TPP agreement after US Congress granted the trade promotion authority to president Barack Obama, reported Xinhua news agency.

But U.S. negotiators also went into the latest round of talks cognizant that they had some tricky issues to navigate and that there was the prospect that a deal might remain elusive.

The failure by trade ministers to get the accord over the line on Friday are a blow to Obama – who has faced opposition to the deal from fellow Democrats – as it could see the TPP become campaign fodder with the United States facing elections in November 2016.

“We are more confident than ever that TPP is within reach and will support jobs and economic growth”, he said.

Negotiators from the 12 TPP members had worked through the night and officials said great strides were made in many contentious areas. He says the parties made significant progress at the talks in Hawaii, and agreed to continue the discussions.

Key sticking points were among those most important to New Zealand: improved access for dairy products into the US, Japan and Canada and US pharmaceutical firms’ demands for longer patent terms for new drug treatments. US drugmakers want 12 years, but Australia wants five.

Several prickly issues were believed to have held up the talks this week on the island of Maui, prime among them differences over agricultural markets, auto trade and protection for drug makers. Japan also wants the United States to quickly drop duties on Japanese auto parts going to the United States.

China has established pilot free trade zones in Shanghai and other cities, concluded FTA negotiations with the Republic of Korea and Australia, intensified negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty with the United States and the European Union, and actively advanced negotiations on expanding the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) in the World Trade Organization (WTO), with the aim of promoting China’s economic development and global trade liberalization that are beneficial to all countries.