Canada on board to rethink new TPP deal

After the U.S. withdrawal from agreement in January, 11 countries left to revise

Canada and 10 other countries agreed this weekend to re-evaluate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial trade deal that has been assumed dead since the U.S. pulled out in January.

Trade officials said the deal would change significantly without U.S. involvement, although leaders from the 11 remaining countries are still figuring out what a revised trade plan would look like.

In its current form, the partnership requires U.S. participation before it can go into effect. But a revised TPP wouldn’t be as simple as taking the U.S. out of the existing deal: each of the 11 remaining countries will have to re-evaluate its own trade needs absent of U.S. involvement.

Ministers attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, this weekend discussed taking another look at the terms of the deal. Officials from the countries involved, which include Australia, Malaysia, Mexico and Singapore, among others, have agreed to present assessments to their leaders when they meet for an annual APEC summit in Vietnam in November, which will also include U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Since the U.S withdrawal, Japan and New Zealand have been spearheading efforts to revive the deal. Both countries have ratified the agreement and moved forward on legislation related to the deal. But Canadian officials stress that even the countries most enthusiastic about the previous agreement understand that it must be significantly altered before it can move forward.