‘IPEF a milestone in US engagement in region’

WASHINGTON: Ahead of President Joe Biden’s official launch of the Indo-pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in Tokyo next week, the US on Friday said that a “wide-ranging and comprehensive” set of countries are set to join the initiative and it will represent a significant milestone in US engagement in the region.

Speaking to reporters, US National Security Adviser (NSA) Jake Sullivan acknowledged that the IPEF is not a trade agreement, but suggested that this was a “good thing”.

He said it was a “modern negotiation designed to deal with modern challenges” since it will entail significant investments and provide a new thrust to economic initiatives in the Indo-pacific region.

IPEF is widely seen an American initiative to compete with China’s economic and trade footprint in the region and compensate for the Washington’s absence from the key trading arrangements in the region. The framework has four pillars — fair and resilient trade (digital, labour, environmental and other standards); supply chain resilience; infrastructure, decarbonisation and clean energy; and tax and anticorruption.

According to an HT report last week, the US proposed what experts have called a “pick and choose” formula: where participating countries are free to opt for the pillars they want to collaborate on.

India has not made an official decision on joining the pact, but New Delhi is examining the framework “positively”. There is a likelihood that India will join the framework in principle, even as discussions on specific pillars continue after the launch. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during a visit to Washington DC in April, called the IPEF a “fantastic thought”.

At the end of Biden’s first term, Sullivan said, IPEF’S launch will be viewed as the moment where US engagement in the Indo-pacific got “kicked into a different gear”.

READ THE FULL STORY: IPEF will have wide ranging participation