‘US unlikely to consider rejoining CPTPP in the near term’

KUALA LUMPUR: The United States is unlikely to consider rejoining the massive trade deal under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in the near term.

Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies senior associate for Southeast Asia Programme Murray Hiebert said President Joe Biden’s administration has stressed that it might not consider rejoining the CPTPP as it was currently focused on controlling the spread of Covid19 outbreak and reviving its economy.

“Less than 10 per cent of the US population has been vaccinated and we still have some way to go in getting the Covid-19 pandemic under control. It is not that the economy is not growing but there are sectors that are being hit hard by unemployment and those people have to be put back to work.

“Biden said if the US were to rejoin (the trade pact), it would have to insist on rewriting some of the rules especially on environmental labour and the existing members of CPTPP might tell it ‘to jump into the lake’,” he said during a webinar titled “The Biden Administration’s Global Engagement Strategy” held virtually yesterday.

The CPTPP had been the centrepiece of former President Barack Obama’s strategic pivot to Asia, but Donald Trump withdrew the US from the pact in 2017 before it was signed.

Hiebert noted the general assumption that the trade agenda would not be given a high priority in the first year of Biden’s administration as much focus was on domestic priorities such as healthcare and job growth.

“Instead of working on big trade deals, it is more likely now to be smaller sector agreements such as digital and environmental issues,” he added.

The webinar was organised by the US embassy in Malaysia and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS Malaysia).