New Additions to the Trans Pacific Partnership

By – Abass Wali

An expert in cross border trade is confident the Trans Pacific Partnership will benefit all the countries having signed the agreement, including Canada.

The Trans Pacific Partnership is a document signed between 12 countries which has opened a new path for Canadian businesses to export their products in the world markets.

”Canada will get lots of benefit from the new trade deal, especially with Japan because Japan has a big market especially Japan’s auto industry. It will open more markets for the Canadian export,” said Dr. Bill Anderson, director of the Cross Border Institute at the University of Windsor. “After Japan, other fast – growing places like Malaysia and Vietnam are other opportunities for Canadian exports to bring Canadian products like fruit and minerals to those world markets.”

According to the Toronto Sun, current trade agreements deal with trade in goods and services. Since the service sector now accounts for close to 70 per cent of Canada’s GDP, it is by far the biggest part of Canada’s economy.

Anderson said all trade agreements going onward will involve trade in services.

“Some countries under the TPP deal, particularly New Zealand and few others, wanted to have access to the Canadian market and didn’t want Canada to close its market in those South American cultures,”said Anderson. “It’s actually three to four per cent of that market to competition, from those 12 countries New Zealand, for example, will have a close competition with Canada in milk and dairy products.”

According to Foreign Affairs’ Trade and Development department, Canada has successfully settled negotiations regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest free trade initiative in history. It is a complete, economic, strategic and stable agreement that will increase Canada’s position in the Asia-Pacific countries.

Anderson also said there are some differences between the NAFTA and the new Trans Pacific Partnership.

“There is very strict roles that if you’re going to export something, for example, from the United States to Canada under NAFTA, it has to be 60 per cent of the buyers of that good that has to come from one of the three NAFTA countries,” said Anderson. “Now with the TPP, you have got 12 countries and its only required in a smaller amount, about 45 per cent, so this is one of the things that some of the part manufactures in Canada were concerned about.”

According to Global Research, the TPP could have implications beyond US economic interests in the Asia-Pacific. The region has become increasingly viewed as of being vital strategic importance to the United States.

Throughout the post-World War II period, the region has served as an anchor of US strategic relationships, first in the containment of communism and more recently as a counterweight to the rise of China.

In 2005, the TPP was merely Brunei, Chili, New Zealand and Singapore. Since Oct. 5, 2015 and after 5 years of negotiations, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the U.S. and Vietnam have finally joined to make that number 12 in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.