Canada confirms participation in post-TPP talks next month in Chile
Donald Trump may have packed up his tent, but Canada will join other signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement when they meet next month in Chile to figure out how to proceed without the United States.
International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office has confirmed his attendance at the meeting, for which there is not yet a fixed date.
“Canada will be proactively signaling its willingness to pursue progressive trade in Asia and we very much look forward to those discussions,” wrote spokesman Joseph Pickerill in an email to CBC News.
“Our focus now and indeed in Chile will be on making the proactive case for progressive trade throughout Asia, north and south, in a way that works first and foremost for the middle class,” he wrote.
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The TPP was signed over a year ago at a ceremony in Auckland, New Zealand. Twelve Pacific Rim countries negotiated the deal: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
Signatories had two years to ratify the deal for it to come into effect. While one or two smaller countries could drop out, countries comprising at least 85 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of the 12 signatories needed to ratify before the deadline.
It could not proceed if either the U.S. or Japan failed to ratify it. On Jan.23 Donald Trump signed an executive order signalling the Americans were out.
‘Absolutely relevant’ without U.S.
The TPP text as originally negotiated is over 6,000 pages long. It goes far beyond tariff reductions and market access provisions to set common rules to govern trade and services across a broad range of things, including intellectual property rights, labour regulations and environmental standards.
Trump’s order leaves the remaining partners in limbo: theoretically still agreeing to the common principles they reached, but in need of at least some new negotiations before proceeding with ratification now that the largest economy in the deal, the U.S., is out of the trading bloc the TPP creates.
President Donald Trump signs an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership on Jan.23. He said the U.S. will only negotiate bilateral deals under his leadership. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
For example, some market access or tariff trade-offs may have been worth it for some partners in return for what they’d gain from the Americans. Without the U.S. on the inside, countries may no longer be willing to make the same concessions — the math has changed, to say the least.
But some TPP chapters may be entirely transferrable to a future arrangement between the remaining countries. If the will to proceed exists, they may not need to re-invent everything.
I don’t want, and I know a number of other countries don’t want, those gains to slip through our fingers
– Australian minister Steven Ciobo
On the day Trump signed his order last month, Chile’s foreign minister, Heraldo Munoz, invited ministers from the 11 other TPP members as well as China and South Korea to a summit in March to discuss how to proceed.
It’s unclear if every country has confirmed its participation, but Munoz said then he had received positive responses at a high level, according to a Reuters report at the time.
Australia’s trade, tourism and investment minister Steven Ciobo said in a Bloomberg Television interview this week that the TPP text remains “absolutely” relevant without the U.S.
“There were a lot of hard-fought gains that were achieved over intense negotiations over many years in relation to the TPP,” Ciobo said. “I don’t want, and I know a number of other countries don’t want, those gains to slip through our fingers.”
Japan, Mexico key partners post-TPP
Canada already has bilateral trade deals with some TPP partners, such as Chile.
But the TPP was a way to overcome Canada’s difficulty negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with Japan, a large and valuable market with a stated preference for wider-ranging trade deals, as opposed to negotiating with partners one at a time.
As Trump signed an executive order to pull the United States out of the TPP, Chile’s foreign affairs minister, Heraldo Munoz, invited the remaining 11 signatories, plus China and South Korea, to a summit to talk about how to proceed. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Washington this week to meet with Trump, who wants to negotiate only bilateral deals from now on.
Japan has been part of negotiations with China, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, India, New Zealand and South Korea towards a new deal called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP.)
The Chinese market is the largest in RCEP, and the kind of deal it wants may not be as comprehensive or as progressive as the TPP ambitions were under the leadership of former U.S. president Barack Obama.
Continuing to engage in post-TPP discussions would also continue Canada’s trade dialogue with Mexico at a time when the threats and shifting priorities of the new Trump administration have cast doubt on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.)
A future post-TPP deal could be a vehicle to enshrine Canada’s free trade relationship with Mexico in another agreement.