What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership??

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty. As of 2014, twelve countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region have participated in negotiations on the TPP: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

The proposed agreement began in 2005 as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4). Participating countries set the goal of wrapping up negotiations in 2012, but contentious issues such as agriculture, intellectual property, and services and investments have caused negotiations to continue into the present, with the last round meeting in Ottawa from 3–12 July 2014. Implementation of the TPP is one of the primary goals of the trade agenda of the Obama administration in the United States of America.

On 12 November 2011, the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announced that the TPP intended to "enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs. Some global health professionals, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, organised labour, advocacy groups, and elected officials have criticised and protested the negotiations, in large part because of the proceedings' secrecy, the agreement's expansive scope, and controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public. 

Membership and accession

The negotiations, launched in 2002, initially included three countries (Chile, New Zealand and Singapore) and went by the name of Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership (P3 CEP). Brunei subsequently joined the agreement before its final round of negotiations in 2005. Subsequently, the agreement was renamed to TPSEP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership agreement). The original TPSEP agreement, signed in July/August 2005, contains an accession clause and affirms the members' "commitment to encourage the accession to this Agreement by other economies".

In January 2008, the US agreed to enter into talks with the Pacific 4 (P4) members regarding trade liberalisation in financial services. On 22 September 2008, US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab announced that the US would begin negotiations with the P4 countries to join the TPP, with the first round of talks in early 2009.

In November 2008, Australia, Vietnam, and Peru announced that they would join the P4 trade bloc. In October 2010, Malaysia announced that it had also joined the TPP negotiations.

In 2010, Canada had become an observer in the TPP talks, and expressed interest in officially joining, but was not committed to join, purportedly because the US and New Zealand blocked it due to concerns over Canadian agricultural policy (i.e. supply management)—specifically dairy—and intellectual property-rights protection. Several pro-business and internationalist Canadian media outlets raised concerns about this as a missed opportunity. In a feature in the Financial Post, former Canadian trade-negotiator Peter Clark claimed that the US Obama Administration had strategically outmaneuvered the Canadian Harper Government. Wendy Dobson and Diana Kuzmanovic for The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, argued for the economic necessity of the TPP to Canada. Embassy warned that Canada's position in APEC could be compromised by being excluded from both the US-oriented TPP and the proposed China-oriented ASEAN +3 trade agreement (or the broader Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia).

In June 2012, Canada and Mexico announced that they were joining the TPP negotiations. Mexico's interest in joining was initially met with concern among TPP negotiators about its customs policies.

Canada and Mexico formally became TPP negotiating participants in October 2012, following completion of the domestic consultation periods of the other nine members.

Japan officially joined the TPP negotiations on 23 July 2013. According to the Brookings Institution, Prime Minister Abe's decision to commit Japan to joining the TPP should be understood as a necessary complement to his efforts to stimulate the Japanese economy with monetary easing and the related depreciation of the Yen. These efforts alone, without the type of economic reform the TPP will lead to, are unlikely to produce long-term improvements in Japan's growth prospects.

Members and Potential members