REUTERS - Japan on Friday
ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade pact aimed at linking a
dozen Pacific Rim nations, hoping it will one day take effect despite
President-elect Donald Trump's pledge that the United States will withdraw from
it.
The TPP, which aims
to cut trade barriers in some of Asia's fastest-growing economies but does not
include China, can not take effect without the United States.
The deal, which has
been five years in the making, requires ratification by at least six countries
accounting for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic product of the member
nations.
Given the sheer size
of the American economy, the deal cannot go ahead without U.S. participation.
It has not been
ratified by the U.S. Senate and Trump last month promised to withdraw from it
after he is inaugurated in January. Instead, he would replace it with
bilaterally negotiated trade deals.
Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has said the TPP would be "meaningless without the
United States".
But by ratifying the
deal in parliament on Friday, Japan is signaling it hopes the accord can be
resuscitated when conditions are more favorable.
Government officials
said the trade pact would essentially go into deep freeze but that they would
not abandon hope of reviving it in future.
Taro Kono, a senior
lawmaker of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said there was a chance that
Trump would change his mind.
New Zealand Prime
Minister John Key joked last month that it would be fine with him to rename the
agreement Trump Pacific Partnership if that would convince the president-elect
to get on board, media reported.
REUTERS
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