With the swish of the U.S. president’s pen, six years of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership went up in smoke. Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order withdrawing the U.S. from the 12-country agreement.
But for the remaining 11 parties to the partnership — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam — the TPP is not dead yet. Negotiations are already underway to determine what a TPP minus the U.S. may look like. That could include new partners, such as Germany or even China, a country that was intentionally excluded from the previous negotiations in hopes the agreement would be a counter-weight to Beijing’s regional influence.
Developing countries in the TPP negotiations are watching particularly closely to see how new iterations of the agreement could impact their access to markets and ability to build more diverse trading economies in the Asia-Pacific.
About the author
Lisa Cornishlisa_cornish
Lisa Cornish is a former Devex Senior Reporter based in Canberra, where she focuses on the Australian aid community. Lisa has worked with News Corp Australia as a data journalist and has been published throughout Australia in the Daily Telegraph in Melbourne, Herald Sun in Melbourne, Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and online through news.com.au. Lisa additionally consults with Australian government providing data analytics, reporting and visualization services.
