The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), also known as TPP11 or TPP-11, is a trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. It evolved from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was never ratified due to the withdrawal of the United States. The eleven members have combined economies representing 13.4 percent of global gross domestic product, at approximately trillion, making the CPTPP one of the world's largest free-trade areas by GDP, along with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, the European single market, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The United Kingdom formally signed the trade agreement on 16 July 2023 and will join the agreement when it has been ratified by all parties.
The TPP had been signed on 4 February 2016 but never entered into force, as the U.S. withdrew from the agreement soon after the election of president Donald Trump. All other TPP signatories agreed in May 2017 to revive the agreement, with Shinzo Abe's administration in Japan widely reported as taking the leading role in place of the U.S. In January 2018, the CPTPP was created as a succeeding agreement, retaining two-thirds of its predecessor's provisions; 22 measures favored by the U.S. but contested by other signatories were suspended, while the threshold for enactment was lowered so as not to require U.S. accession.
The formal signing ceremony was held on 8 March 2018 in Santiago, Chile. The agreement specifies that its provisions enter into effect 60 days after ratification by at least half the signatories (six of the eleven participating countries). On 31 October 2018, Australia was the sixth nation to ratify the agreement; it subsequently came into force for the initial six ratifying countries on 30 December 2018.
The chapter on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) requires signatories to share information about SOEs with each other, with the intent of engaging with the issue of state intervention in markets. It includes the most detailed standards for intellectual property of any trade agreement, as well as protections against intellectual property theft against corporations operating abroad.
The CPTPP commission in 2023 is chaired by New Zealand.
Negotiations
During the round of negotiations held concurrently with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vietnam in November 2017, the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau refused to sign the agreement in principle, stating reservations about the provisions on culture and automotives. Media outlets in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, which strongly supported quick movement on a deal, strongly criticized what they portrayed as Canadian sabotage.
Canada insisted that cultural and language rights, specifically related to its French-speaking minority, be protected.
However, Canada's major reservation was a conflict between the percentage of a vehicle that must originate in a CPTPP member nation to enter tariff-free, which was 45% under the original TPP language and 62.5% under the NAFTA agreement. Japan, which is a major automobile part exporter, strongly supports lower requirements. In January 2018, Canada announced that it would sign the CPTPP after obtaining binding side letters on culture with every other CPTPP member country, as well as bilateral agreements with Japan, Malaysia, and Australia related to non-tariff barriers. Canada's Auto Parts Manufacturers' Association sharply criticized increasing the percentages of automobile parts that may be imported tariff-free, noting that the United States was moving in the opposite direction by demanding stricter importation standards in the NAFTA renegotiation, later USMCA.
In February 2019, Canada's Jim Carr, Minister of International Trade Diversification, delivered a keynote address at a seminar concerning CPTPP - Expanding Your Business Horizons, reaching out to businesses stating the utilisation of the agreement provides a bridge that will enable people, goods and services to be shared more easily.
The final text of CPTPP was mostly identical to the original TPP, except for some provisions advanced by the US under the TPP, but not supported by the other members. In the intellectual property chapter, copyright and patent terms were shortened relative to TPP, and standards for digital IP protections were eliminated. Provisions allowing use of investor–state dispute settlements for investment agreements and authorizations were also rescinded.