The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy, which was reached on 5 October 2015 after 7 years of negotiations. The agreement's stated goal had been to "promote economic growth; support the creation and retention of jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in our countries; and promote transparency, good governance, and enhanced labor and environmental protections." Among other things, the TPP Agreement contains measures to lower trade barriers such as tariffs, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (but states can opt out from tobacco-related measures). The United States government has considered the TPP as the companion agreement to the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a broadly similar agreement between the United States and the European Union.

Historically, the TPP is an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4), which was signed by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2005. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the total number of participating countries in the negotiations to twelve.

Participating nations aimed at completing negotiations in 2012, but contentious issues such as agriculture, intellectual property, and services and investments caused negotiations to continue. They finally reached agreement on 5 October 2015. Implementing the TPP has been one of the trade agenda goals of the Obama administration in the US. On 5 October 2015 Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper expected "signatures on the finalized text and deal early in the new year, and ratification over the next two years." A version of the text of the treaty "Subject to Legal Review (...) for Accuracy, Clarity and Consistency" was made public on 5 November 2015, the same day President Obama notified Congress that he intends to sign it.

A number of global health professionals, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, organised labour, advocacy groups, and elected officials have criticized and protested against the treaty, in large part because of the secrecy of negotiations, the agreement's expansive scope, and controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public.

Membership

Twelve countries participated in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: the four parties to the 2005 Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement in 2006, and eight others.

Potential members

The accession of other parties to the agreement is possible for APEC members and any other jurisdiction the parties reach agreement on. After application for membership a commission of parties to the treaty negotiates conditions for accession.

South Korea did not participate in the 2006 agreement, but showed interest in entering the TPP, and in December 2010 was invited to the TPP negotiating rounds by the U.S. after the successful conclusion of its Free trade agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of Korea. South Korea already had bilateral trade agreements with some TPP members, but areas such as vehicle manufacturing and agriculture still needed to be agreed upon, making further multilateral TPP negotiations somewhat complicated. South Korea may join the TPP as part of a second wave of expansion for the trade agreement.

Other countries interested in TPP membership have included Taiwan, the Philippines, and Colombia, as of 2010, Thailand and Laos as of 2012, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India as of 2013. According to law professor Edmund Sim in 2013, many of these countries needed to change their protectionist trade policies in order to join the TPP.

The largest economy in the Pacific Rim not involved in the negotiations is China. According to the Brookings Institution in 2013, the most fundamental challenge for the TPP project regarding China was that "it may not constitute a powerful enough enticement to propel China to sign on to these new standards on trade and investment. China so far has reacted by accelerating its own trade initiatives in Asia." In 2013 it was thought that China might still be interested in joining the TPP eventually. An academic analysis has shown that while the TPP would be more successful if China participated in it, the benefits to China are intangible.

In October 2015 Indonesian President Joko Widodo declared Indonesia's intention to join the TPP.

History

Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement

Brunei, Chile, Singapore and New Zealand are parties to the Transpacific Economic Partnership Agreement, which was signed in 2005, and entered into force in 2006. The original TPSEP agreement contains an accession clause and affirms the members' "commitment to encourage the accession to this Agreement by other economies". It is a comprehensive agreement, affecting trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy. Among other things, it called for reduction by 90 percent of all tariffs between member countries by 1 January 2006, and reduction of all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015.

Although original and negotiating parties are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the TPSEP is not an APEC initiative. However, the TPP is considered to be a pathfinder for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), an APEC initiative.

Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations

In January 2008, the U.S. agreed to enter into talks with the Pacific 4 (P4) members regarding trade liberalisation in financial services. This led to 19 formal negotiation rounds, then a series of other meetings, such as Chief Negotiators Meetings and Ministers Meetings, leading to the agreement that was announced on 5 October 2015. For details on the negotiations process, see Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

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