Donald Trump’s return to the White House brings back a standing plan to forge a strategic partnership between the EU and a key Indo-Pacific commercial block, according to EU officials and senior diplomats.
Plans to establish stronger links between Brussels and the complete and progressive agreement for the transpacific partnership – a group of 12 countries which includes Canada, Japan and Mexico – have grown after the announcement of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.
An official of the European Commission said that although it is “still very early”, the two parties “moved into a space where we are ready to look at a kind of structured cooperation with [the] CPTPP “.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told the FT in April that the two parties wanted to cooperate on “rules on the functioning of fair trade worldwide for the best of humanity”.
The two blocks wanted to use current disorders to examine what should be improved at the World Trade Organization “and how can we work closer to happen,” said Von Der Leyen.
The renewed opening in Brussels to a partnership, which could potentially include closer links on digital trade and goods, marks a change in attitude at the highest level of the EU.
The idea would throw an umbrella on national economies representing around 30% of world GDP, and would send the signal that the majority of the world trade system has committed to preserving the order based on rules now threatened by Trump prices, officials said on both sides.
An earlier attempt to deepen the links in 2023 did not obtain a diplomatic traction, but a report at the time by the Swedish National Commerce Council, an independent government agency, argued that an agreement between the blocks could make it “the center of gravity in world trade”.
The CPTPP was founded in 2018 and includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. It offers equal treatment to investors and a more deeply integrated goods trade. The EU already has bilateral agreements with nine members of the CPTPP.
Among the countries of the CPTPP, the most vocal support for the closer ties of the EU came from New Zealand, Canada and Singapore, but the diplomats said that Japan was also silent.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada said that the country was determined to strengthen its trade relations with Europe and the Indo-Pacific Region, although a spokesman insisted that “no decision or agreement has been made”.
The Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Singapore have also approved the idea of ​​deeper cooperation between the two blocks in recent weeks.
A mechanism to convert such warm feelings into a process of official dialogue has not yet been established, said diplomats, in part because Australia currently has the rotating presidency of the CPTPP and organized a general election this weekend.
The formation of a new Australian government is expected to take over a bilateral EU-Australia of the EU, which could also provide a wider UE-CPTPP Dialogue, said EU diplomats.
Another CPTPP diplomat said that EU cooperation improvement mechanisms could be raised during a meeting of trade ministers at the Economic Cooperation Reunion in Asia-Pacific (APEC) in South Korea this month.
Supporters of a rapid agreement are Cecilia Malmström, a former EU trade commissioner now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who said that there was clearly “renewed momentum” behind the idea.
“If this happens, it should happen fairly quickly-this year,” she added. “The EU is a slow animal, but it is enough to look at the last three months, there is a real emergency to try to defend the rules based on the rules,” she told the FT.
The parameters of any arrangement are also to be agreed. Von Der Leyen said he was not planned for the EU to join the CPTPP.
A CPTPP official said that a possible framework could involve a “twin track” process including a “new code of conduct” in which ministers have jointly affirmed their commitment to WTO rules, in parallel with a separate dialogue to discuss harmonization rules in key fields such as digital trade and sustainability.
At the same time, in an effort not to be presented as an anti-American block and recognizing that some of Washington’s commercial grievances were justified, an agreement could also seek to engage with the WTO reforms.
The most ambitious proposals for an agreement between the two blocks also raised the possibility that the two parties accept the “cumulative” of the so-called rules of origin, which are used in the free trade agreements to determine whether a product has sufficient local content to be eligible for preferential access at a low rate at a market.
Supporters of this idea say that it would allow the EU and CPTPP companies to more easily integrate their supply chains and to allow them to more easily import goods in countries with each other.
The idea was launched by the Commercial Commission in Sweden and again in a recent report by the Brussels Brussels reflection group, but the commission officials were clear that it was not currently an option for the EU.
Additional reports Nic Fildes in Sydney and Leo Lewis in Tokyo
