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AFP
Santiago
Eleven nations signed a slimmed-down version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement Thursday, moving to lower tariffs just as US President Donald Trump seeks to raise them after withdrawing from the deal.
The foreign ministers of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam officially created what is now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a market representing half a billion people and 13.5 percent of the global economy.
Eleven Asia-Pacific nations met to sign a slimmed-down trade pact to lower tariffs just as US President Donald Trump sought to raise them after withdrawing from the deal last year.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have represented 40 percent of the global economy and nearly one-quarter of its trade, was left for dead after Trump pulled out to pursue his"America First"agenda before the TPP could take effect. But the revamped deal, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), is still a significant achievement that sends a message of openness, its supporters said ahead of the signing ceremony in Santiago, Chile. The 11 states form a market of 500 million people, greater than that of the European Union's single market."International trade is very much a live, despite what some people think,"said Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz.
