Australia and the Future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Shiro Armstrong

Trade Working Papers from East Asian Bureau of Economic Research

Abstract: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement aims to be a high quality, 21st Century economic agreement that furthers economic integration in the Asia Pacific. In late 2011 it remains unclear whether the TPP will turn out to be a stepping stone or stumbling block towards regional or global economic integration. The current negotiations involve Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam with Japan, Mexico and Canada expressing interest in joining. The potential economic and political significance of the TPP depends on the expansion of the membership to include Japan, Korea, Indonesia, other East Asian economies, and especially China, as well as the ultimate quality of any agreement. Including additional members will be difficult after a deal is concluded among the original members and partners with whom they are currently in negotiation, especially if the content of the agreement and the accession criteria are not designed carefully and specifically with additional membership in mind. Desirably TPP will contribute to the global system by making it easier for others to join. That includes multilateralising preferences within the TPP, and eventually extending that treatment to non-members. Importantly, the agenda of negotiations needs to focus on reducing regulatory and institutional, behind-the-border barriers to trade and commerce. Focus on strengthening intellectual property rights, including stringent labour and environmental and other so called "platinum" standards will make it difficult for many members and non-members to participate fully. The TPP has the potential to keep the United States engaged in the region but complications will arise with a TPP to which China is not party, or an inward looking East Asian arrangement to which the United States is not party. A regional arrangement that does not include both the United States and China is more likely to disrupt than to contribute to regional trade and prosperity.

Keywords: Trade agreements; economic integration; TPP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F02 F13 F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eaber.org/node/23135 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 301 [REDIRECT LOOP] Moved Permanently (http://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eaber.org/node/23135)

Related works:
Working Paper: Australia and the Future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eab:tradew:23135

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Trade Working Papers from East Asian Bureau of Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shiro Armstrong ().