Canada seeks ‘coalition of the willing’ on Asian trade, post TPP, says Champagne
OTTAWA — Canada is searching for a new “coalition of the willing” to forge trade links in Asia following President Donald Trump’s decision to kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership, says the new Liberal trade minister.
Trump followed through on his promise to pull the U.S. out of the 12-country Pacific Rim pact in the days after his inauguration last month, a decision that has effectively killed the TPP.
The sweeping trade deal in goods would have accounted for 40 per cent of the global economy and included several Asian and Western Hemisphere countries, Canada among them.
But now it is back to the drawing board because the TPP can only be ratified if six countries, totalling 85 per cent of the deal’s combined GDP, approve the deal.