Bid to save TPP trade pact dumped by Trump comes to head this week
The push to salvage a Pacific-rim trade pact will come to a head this week as nations diverge on whether it should be preserved, abandoned or renegotiated from scratch after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Danang, Vietnam, will bring together the remaining 11 members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with both Japan and Vietnam raising the prospect of concluding a deal. Japan -- the world’s third-largest economy -- continues to advocate for the TPP amid warnings that its collapse, or even a move to redo it, would hurt growth.
“We want to maintain the high standard and find a way to seal the deal between the 11 countries,” Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said last week. “A list has emerged of sections that each country wants to freeze and we have made progress on cutting it back. What’s left are issues that are important to each country, or that they are particularly concerned about.”
The pact would have covered 40 percent of the global economy, going beyond traditional deals by including issues like intellectual property, state-owned enterprises and labor rights. After years of painful negotiation, and close to the ratification stage at thousands of pages, it was thrown into disarray when Trump withdrew the U.S. in one of his first acts as president this year, arguing the move was needed to protect U.S. jobs.
The agreement was seen as a hallmark of U.S. engagement with Asia under the prior administration and a buffer against China’s rising clout. ThenDefense Secretary Ash Carter called it more strategically important than having another aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific. Since the U.S. withdrawal, remaining nations have struggled to take the deal forward.
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Two Japanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week they expected a TPP-11 deal to be reached in Vietnam, with one adding that about 20 issues still needed to be resolved.
The logic for a deal remains compelling, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Saturday. The TPP would improve market access and support the rule of law -- and the world was “dangerously short of both,” he said.
TPP was nonetheless built in large part around U.S. participation. And with the world’s largest economy gone, others have voiced concerns. The pact’s second-largest remaining economy, Canada, is pushing to beef up what it calls “progressive” elements of the deal while maintaining market access, warning that could take some time.
“What is very much alive is the objective of open, principled, rules-based trade. The vehicle, the instrument to get there -- that’s what the leaders will have to discuss,” Trade Minister FrancoisPhilippe Champagne said in an Oct. 30 interview. Canada has hosted talks to save the TPP, and Champagne said he wasn’t proposing a full-scale renegotiation. “Certainly, I think it’s months, if not years, ahead in terms of bringing everyone along.”