Here’s why TPP leaders’ meeting failed to happen
danang (Vietnam) — A planned meeting of leaders of the 11 countries in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) to decide on the fate of the trade pact did not take place on Friday, amid disagreements over how to take it forward without the United States.
The leaders were set to meet on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Vietnam to discuss how to push ahead with the TPP.
Their meeting was preceded by conflicting comments from their delegations on Thursday, when the trade ministers met to firm up a plan to present to the leaders. Japan had said an agreement in principle had been reached, but Canada disputed that.
The spat highlighted the continuing challenge to reviving a pact whose survival was thrown into doubt when President Donald Trump ditched it, in one of his first acts in office, in favour of bilateral deal-making by the United States. The leaders’ meeting had been scheduled for 1:45am local time (0645GMT), but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to show up, according to people familiar with the matter.
“The meeting did not happen, work remains to be done and that’s what’s happening now,” a Canadian official said. “We need to get this right and that will take the time it takes. We have to remember, the task officials had going into this week was to present options,” the official said.
Even before the planned meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had told the president of Peru — a TPP member — that he welcomed a broad agreement reached at the meeting.
Canada, whose economy is the second-biggest among the TPP-11 after Japan, said on Wednesday it would not be rushed into a revived TPP deal. Like Mexico, its position is further complicated by renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Trump administration. —