Pacific Trade ministers commit to move ahead with pact sans US

HANOI – Pacific Rim trade ministers meeting in Vietnam committed Sunday to move ahead with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact after the United States pulled out.

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said the remaining 11 TPP countries are open to others joining provided they accept the trade agreement’s high standards on labor and environmental protection. He said the door remains open to the US, even after President Donald Trump withdrew from prefers bilateral free trade deals.

“It ’ s clear t hat each country is having to consider both economic values and strategic importance of this agreement, but in the end there is a lot of unity among all of the countries and a great desire to work together to come up with an agreement among 11 that not only delivers for all of our economies and the people of our countries, it’s also open to others countries in the world to join if they can TPP agreement,” McClay told reporters.

Since the US withdrawal, Japan and New Zealand have been spearheading efforts to revive the deal. In its current form, the TPP requires US participation before it can go into effect. That means the remaining countries would need to change the rules for any deal to go ahead, and it would be significantly smaller without the involvement of the world’s largest economy.

The 11 countries represent roughly 13.5 percent of the