Japanese officials are particularly concerned that a failure to reach a deal on TPP will allow China’s proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to gain steam. RCEP includes many countries involved in TPP talks but proposes significantly less stringent rules.
July 14, 2017
‘When President Trump pulled out of his predecessor’s signature trade deal on his first full weekday in office, the 11 other countries that had negotiated the pact were left wondering if years of work had just gone down the drain.
This week, those countries indicated that they wanted to press ahead with the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a sweeping multinational trade agreement that had originally been sold as a way to tether the United States more closely to East Asia and to create an economic bloc capable of standing against an increasingly muscular China.’