12
Nation Trans Pacific Body Meets in London to Widen Membership Base
Eight years after coming into force, the
CPTPP is finally being refreshed. Members are starting talks on upgrades to
existing legal texts while grappling with membership expansion, digital trade,
and a possible Secretariat. The real test is whether members can improve
transparency and take their commitments seriously.
·
The 12 members of the Comprehensive and Progressive
Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are meeting in London on May 13
to discuss major reforms, upgrades and expansion of the trade bloc.
·
Current CPTPP members are:
o
Australia
o
Brunei
o
Canada
o
Chile
o
Japan
o
Malaysia
o
Mexico
o
New Zealand
o
Peru
o
Singapore
o
United Kingdom
o
Vietnam
Membership
Expansion Accelerates
·
Costa Rica has reached “substantial conclusion” in
accession talks and is expected to become the 13th member soon.
·
Additional membership applications have come from:
o
Uruguay
o
United Arab Emirates
o
Indonesia
o
Philippines
o
China
o
Taiwan
Focus on
Updating Trade Rules
·
Members are beginning negotiations to modernize
CPTPP rules for the first time since the agreement came into force in 2018.
·
Priority areas for upgrades include:
o
digital trade and e-commerce,
o
trade in services,
o
customs and trade facilitation,
o
business competitiveness,
o
women’s economic empowerment.
·
Vietnam, the 2026 chair, has also been tasked with
discussions on:
o
investment rules,
o
state-owned enterprises,
o
innovation,
o
gender mainstreaming,
o
economic coercion,
o
market-distorting practices.
Greater
Coordination With Other Trade Blocs
·
CPTPP members are exploring closer cooperation with
the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
·
Trade experts from the EU and CPTPP are meeting in
Tokyo to discuss alignment on:
o
digital trade,
o
customs cooperation,
o
regulatory standards.
Push for
a “Living Agreement”
·
CPTPP members originally envisioned the pact as a
flexible “living agreement” that could evolve over time.
·
In practice, revising trade rules has proven
difficult because changes often require complex approval processes in member
countries.
·
Analysts say ASEAN’s regular upgrading of trade
agreements could serve as a useful model for CPTPP reforms.
Digital
Trade Becoming Central
·
Several CPTPP members, especially Singapore,
Australia and Japan, have already developed advanced digital economy agreements
outside CPTPP.
·
Existing initiatives such as the World Trade
Organization Joint Statement Initiative on E-commerce may help shape future
CPTPP digital trade rules.
New Areas
Likely to Be Added
·
Members are considering new chapters covering:
o
economic coercion,
o
crisis trade management,
o
supply-chain resilience,
o
transparency and cooperation during emergencies.
·
Experts suggest the bloc could adopt
recommendations from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
Debate
Over Creating a Secretariat
·
A major unresolved issue is whether CPTPP should
establish a permanent Secretariat to manage:
o
accession negotiations,
o
rule updates,
o
institutional coordination,
o
relations with other trade blocs.
·
Currently, the agreement relies on rotating annual
chairs and limited institutional support.
·
Members recently agreed to create an interim
administrative “Unit” to improve coordination and transparency.
Transparency
Concerns Remain
·
Critics say CPTPP lacks publicly accessible
information on:
o
side agreements,
o
accession processes,
o
meeting decisions,
o
member commitments.
·
Analysts argue that future negotiations should
involve greater stakeholder and public participation rather than closed-door
discussions.
·
The ongoing reform process is seen as a critical
test of whether CPTPP can evolve into a more influential and modern global
trade platform.
Eight
years after coming into force, the 12 member governments of the Comprehensive and
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are busy refreshing
the deal. Ministers and senior officials from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam
are gathering in London on 13 May to discuss future plans.
The
agenda is crowded. In addition to starting negotiations on upgrades and additions
to the existing legal texts, members are grappling with the expansion of membership.
Costa Rica reached “substantial conclusion” on its accession and will soon become
the 13th member. Additional applications have been received from Uruguay, the United
Arab Emirates, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, and Taiwan.
Members
are also actively working with other trade blocs to create greater alignment on
specific issues at a time of increasing global economic turbulence. This includes
discussions with the European Union (EU) and the 11 members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). On the same day that CPTPP economic leaders are
gathering in London, a group of trade experts from the EU and CPTPP will be meeting
in Tokyo to consider how to cooperate on topics like digital trade or craft improved
customs and regulatory alignment.
Much
of the time at the London officials meeting will be taken up with internal discussions
of the existing CPTPP arrangements. Members spent three years conducting a general
review (which was originally mandated for year “3” of the agreement). That comprehensive
look at the texts identified areas for improvement and further negotiations in electronic
commerce, trade in services, customs administration and trade facilitation, competitiveness
and business facilitation, and trade and women's economic empowerment.
In
the years since the original agreement was negotiated, members have made a handful
of changes, mostly to provide additional language around accessions. But the substance
of the CPTPP agreement has not changed. The
start of talks to craft new rules and commitments in the five areas outlined above
will be the first time members have agreed to revise the legal texts. The process
for working through these talks has not yet been established, and the potential
timelines for conclusion are unknown.
The
2026 Chair, Vietnam, was also tasked with addressing other topics like investment,
state-owned enterprises, innovation, gender mainstreaming, economic coercion, and
market-distorting practices. The current CPTPP document does include commitments
for investment, state-owned enterprises, and a little bit on gender as part of the
chapter on development. Additional negotiations
will be necessary to adjust these rules, if members opt to do so, or to add new
topics or chapters for the future.
One
important early promise of members was to create a trade agreement that would be
a “living” document — easily adjusted as conditions and membership needs changed.
In practice, this has proven harder to do than it sounds. Even simple tweaks to
better align existing text with subsequent practices could trigger a full-blown
review and approval process in some member governments.
However,
adjustments to other existing agreements have been a standard practice for many
CPTPP members, including those in Asia. ASEAN, for example, regularly upgrades its
own free trade agreement commitments with Dialogue Partners like Australia and New
Zealand.
Many
CPTPP members have been busy working on a range of pledges in the covered areas
like electronic commerce since 2018. Moving some of these commitments into the CPTPP,
such as those in the World Trade Organization’s Joint Statement Initiative on E-commerce
pushed by CPTPP members Australia, Japan, and Singapore, should be relatively straightforward.
CPTPP members, like Singapore, have also been active in crafting digital economy
agreements with partners like Australia and the UK, which might also have provisions
that could be slotted into the CPTPP texts.
Some
of the newer areas, like economic coercion or innovation, may take longer to negotiate.
Any final commitments could be closer to soft law than hard, legally-binding rules.
Given the high levels of economic disruption that members have faced since the original
launch of talks in 2010, using the CPTPP as a platform for discussions, transparency,
and cooperation should be encouraged.
Members
should also consider adding a chapter to the CPTPP on trade in times of crisis.
The key objective would be to clarify the processes and procedures for managing
crisis events in advance. Just agreeing on focal points for information sharing
across members would be an advantage to governments grappling with a range of disruptions
to trade in the future. Of course, the chapter could do much more, but the general
point would be to enhance transparency and cooperation ahead of a challenge. Much
of the work that could guide such negotiations has already been done by the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
One
critically important upgrade remains the determination of a CPTPP Secretariat. Coordinating
a complex agreement, conducting upgrade negotiations, managing challenging accession
members and processes, as well as creating alignment with other regional trade blocs
are increasingly impossible to manage through annual rotating chairs. The current
institutional structure includes ad hoc interim meetings as well as one Commission
meeting per year.
The
reasons given by members for not having a Secretariat range from practical issues,
such as difficulties in deciding where it should be located, who will pay, how much
funding will be provided by each member, and who will serve as staff, to larger
worries like the potential for a powerful Secretariat in the future that could undermine
the specific wishes of individual members.
As
an interim measure, at the ninth Commission meeting, members agreed to create a
“Unit.” The final statement says, “We commit to establish a Unit that will provide
administrative support in the stewardship of the Agreement's implementation and
operation. In this regard, we task officials to commence discussion on the development
of its functions, structure, and workplan, and report the outcomes to the Commission
in 2026.”
The
Unit could start, as an example, by putting out a clear set of information on the
CPTPP, including the legal texts, inclusion of all adjustments to the text (such
as the changes to accession processes agreed by Commission decisions), and member
schedules and commitments. The schedules for the most recently acceded member, the
United Kingdom, are not currently listed on most CPTPP member websites, including
that of New Zealand, which serves as the Depository country for the agreement. There
has never been a comprehensive list of side letters. Details on potential applicants,
including a basic list of interested parties, have never been available.
Information
about decisions made during Commission meetings, any ad hoc sessions, or indeed,
even a list of future Commission Chairs, is non-existent or difficult to find. If
the CPTPP is to be a valuable trade platform for the future, these basic information
gaps need to be addressed.
But
the start of negotiations on important topics like digital trade, economic coercion,
and investment changes requires CPTPP members to go far beyond just providing basic
information. One of the best elements of the original TPP negotiations was the inclusion
of formal processes for input from stakeholders and the ongoing engagement of officials
with stakeholders and members of the media.
Talks
cannot and should not take place entirely behind closed doors, in a vacuum with
limited outside input. Citizens around the world have become much more familiar
with the ways in which trade policy can affect their daily lives. The CPTPP texts
repeatedly emphasize the importance of transparency. It is long past time for members
to move past “talking the talk.” It is time to “walk the walk.” This refresh provides
an important opportunity for the growing group of members to take the agreement
and commitments seriously.