UK’s Post-Brexit Tilt Towards CPTPP

• 02 Feb 2021

The U.K. government has announced that it is applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), one of the world's largest free-trade areas made up of 11 developed and emerging economies in the Pacific, under its post-Brexit plans.

About CPTPP

• It 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 never entered into force due to the withdrawal of the United States.
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was signed on 4 February 2016, but never entered into force, as Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement soon after being elected. All original TPP signatories except the US agreed in May 2017 to revive it and reached agreement in January 2018 to conclude the CPTPP.