CPTPP

What it is

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a multilateral free trade agreement among 12 economies spanning the Indo-Pacific and, since December 2024, Europe. Members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Together they represent roughly 15% of global GDP, approximately US$15.8 trillion, making the pact the world's fourth-largest free trade area by output, behind the USMCA, the European single market, and China's RCEP. The agreement covers goods tariffs, services market access, investment rules, intellectual property, state-owned-enterprise disciplines, labour standards, and environmental commitments across a Pacific-rim geography from Canada to Vietnam.

History

CPTPP traces to the original Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed on 4 February 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand, by 12 countries including the United States. After US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the TPP in January 2017, the remaining 11 countries renegotiated and signed the CPTPP on 8 March 2018 in Santiago, Chile. The final text carries forward the bulk of TPP commitments but suspends 22 provisions, primarily those the US had championed, covering pharmaceutical data exclusivity and certain intellectual-property enforcement measures. The agreement entered into force on 30 December 2018 for its first six ratifiers: Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Singapore. The remaining founding members ratified over subsequent years, with Brunei the last to complete ratification among the originals.

Current state

As of July 2026, CPTPP has 12 members. The UK joined as the first non-founding and first European member on 15 December 2024, after signing an accession protocol on 16 July 2023 and depositing its instrument of accession on 16 May 2024. Canada had not yet ratified the UK accession protocol as of mid-2026, meaning UK goods receive no preferential CPTPP treatment in Canada. Costa Rica completed substantive accession negotiations in May 2026 and is preparing its legal instrument of accession, which would make it the 13th member and the first from Central America. At the CPTPP Commission's ministerial meeting on 26 June 2026, ministers launched preparatory accession discussions with the Philippines, Indonesia, and the UAE, extending the pact's reach into the Gulf for the first time. An accession working group for Uruguay received instructions to accelerate.

Relationships

Japan has been the principal institutional driver of CPTPP since the US exit and steered enlargement negotiations for the UK accession. Australia and Canada are the two largest founding-member economies by GDP. CPTPP co-exists with, and partly overlaps in membership with, the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and China's RCEP. China applied to join CPTPP in September 2021; that application remains pending without a negotiating timetable. Existing members have conditioned progress on compliance with CPTPP disciplines on state subsidies, data localisation, and labour practices that China's domestic legal framework does not currently meet. Taiwan also applied in September 2021, and its application faces the same political impasse. The pact's expansion toward the Gulf signals that Abu Dhabi is repositioning from a purely Gulf Cooperation Council trade posture into broader Indo-Pacific economic architecture.

What to watch

• Costa Rica's ratification timeline: once complete, CPTPP will have its first Central American member and a precedent for geographic expansion beyond the Pacific rim.
• Canada's ratification of the UK accession protocol, the only founding-member ratification still outstanding as of mid-2026.
• Progress of preparatory discussions with the Philippines, Indonesia, and the UAE, each of which faces domestic political hurdles on state-enterprise rules and labour standards.
• Whether the enlargement round reshapes the terms of China's pending application, particularly if the UAE sets a precedent for non-Pacific-rim members with large state sectors.