Canada hopeful TPP can survive without U.S.

• Canada will consider pursuing a new multilateral Pacific Rim trade deal now that U. S. President Donald Trump has signaled the U. S. is abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in an interview Friday shortly before Trump’s inauguration Canada would consider all its options with fellow TPP states, including whether a new deal can be salvaged without U. S. participation. The new president hammered on an “America First” message in his speech, and the administration immediately vowed to withdraw from the Pacific deal in a policy statement posted to the revamped White House website.

“There’s a number of countries which would be interested in either considering bilateral trade agreements or seeing potentially what could be done with TPP,” Champagne said by phone from Davos, Switzerland, where he attended the World Economic Forum.

His comments signal Canada’s optimism the TPP can survive in some form without the U. S. — echoing recent votes of confidence by Australia and Japan. But former prime minister Stephen Harper, who signed on to the pact in 2015, has expressed doubts about its future.

“It’s certainly the case that, for the foreseeable future, the big multilateral trade deals are dead,” Harper said this week in New Delhi, where he delivered his first major public address since his defeat to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals shortly after acceding to the pact.

Trudeau’s trade envoy rejected Harper’s comments but agreed TPP likely won’t proceed in its current form. Champagne was appointed to the job earlier this month in a shuffle that saw his predecessor, Chrystia Freeland, promoted to foreign minister.