CPTPP a shadow of its former TPP self

New Zealanders have always had mixed feelings about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

So much so, that 72,000 of them signed a petition against it and people in towns and cities up and down the country took to the streets in protest.

Among other things, they did not like clauses that seemed to surrender New Zealand sovereignty to big international corporations, and patent extensions that would have pushed up the cost of Pharmac-funded medicines.

On the other hand, New Zealand is dependent on international trade – which in this era means free trade – for its economic survival.

Also, the TPP was a way of gaining freer access to the United States market, which we, as a small and frankly quite insignificant nation, could not have hoped to negotiate by ourselves.

Now the TPP has morphed into the CPTPP – the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-pacific Partnership. It is a shadow of its former self after barely surviving an almost farcical series of setbacks at the Apec Summit in Vietnam. Its future is still uncertain.

Despite this, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it is a ‘‘damned sight better’’ deal than it was three weeks ago.

The TPP was born during the administration of US President Barack Obama, who saw a trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim nations as a handy way of countering the growing global influence of China.

One of the first things that Donald Trump, a free-trade sceptic, did as incoming president was to pull the United States out of the deal under his ‘‘America First’’ policy. China, of course, is still ascendant.

To the surprise of many, the remaining 11 nations decided to keep working towards the deal – it turns out that the next largest trader in the bloc, Japan, believed in it as a way to counter China. The TPP11, as it had become, was due to be signed in Da Nang.

It turns out, however, that plenty of other countries were wanting to take something back from the earlier agreement now the over-arching demands of the United States were no longer in the deal.

New Zealand was not alone in disliking the investor-state disputes clauses that gave international corporations the right to sue little nation states like ours in special tribunals.

Vietnam wanted longer to meet labour standards, Brunei and Malaysia wanted fewer restrictions on their oil and gas industries and Canada wanted an exemption for its ‘‘cultural interests’’.

Ardern will have learned a useful lesson in international trade relations from her trip to Vietnam. It is that she might head to world summits with specific objectives, only to find herself in the middle of a bunfight.