Vocal Voices

China formally applied to join CPTPP on Sept 16th. Yesterday Taiway also formally applied.

The UK applied in February and formal negotiations started in June with a working group being set up.

Australia has stated that it will veto China from joining and they have that power as all accession decisions must be unanimous.

At the same time, the US has noted some interest in joining again after Trump pulled out of the TPP. Given the current situation with China and the latest deal with Aukus, it is possible that the UK could join CPTPP, followed by Taiwan and then the US could wind up in a trade deal with the UK by default.

Wheels within wheels within wheels.

The Sun and the Guido Fawkes website have been speculating on a possible resurrection of NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Association) with the UK and Ireland joining the USA and Canada in a trade agreement.
Of course the stumbling block to that is Ireland's relationship with the EU.

There seems to be a bit of disenchantment with the EU in Ireland at the moment over things like the EU's intransigent attitude to the Brexit / border problems, the upcoming changes to business tax rates, and Ireland's non-military stance in the face of Van De Leyden's touted EU Army, but how rooted that disenchantment is, I have no idea. It's also worth noting that the USA is Ireland's biggest trading partner, apparently, not the EU.

Trade deals, eh?

I thought that Suff was talking about all the cracking deals Truss has got with the big players like the Seychelles, Cameroon, Solomon Islands etc. Or maybe the not so good ones with Japan and Aus. But no, it was back door deals by entering trading blocs half a world away rather than one on our doorstep. Blocs, whose rules we will have to abide by - remember the EU - but whose we have no say in making - Atlantic or Pacific.

What a sell out!

Ah, yes, trade blocs.

Not political unions which demand you surrender your sovereignty in order to gain trade.

Poles apart. Actually world's apart.

Workingman wrote:I thought that Suff was talking about all the cracking deals Truss has got with the big players like the Seychelles, Cameroon, Solomon Islands etc

Just for those who haven't looked and so might actually believe this put down.

Let me list some of the largest trade blocs by nominal GDP of the members

RCEP $26.2 trillion
NAFTA $24.8 trillion
EU $15.1tn
CPTPP $11.6tn

You can hardly call CPTPP some small out of the way trade area. However if you look at where the UK has been rolling over trade agreements, a large number of them are CPTPP members. Meaning that accession for the UK to CPTPP would be a matter of ticking the box, rather than trying to align UK trading standards.

In fact the requirements for the UK to be in trade deals with most of these nations are to remove a chunk of trade barriers imposed by the EU.

If you have a look at the latest IMF estimates of UK GDP, with the UK and Taiwan acceding to CPTPP, it becomes larger than the EU. Even without Taiwan, it's within $0.5tn.

Even more, with the UK in CPTPP and China out, the potential for the US to join it would be much higher. The US does not want China dominating any more trade areas like RCEP. With the US in CPTPP, the GDP would exceed RCEP by a large margin. In fact it would rise to $37.4tn without Taiwan.

All these tiny little trade deals the UK keeps doing. Keep going like this and we'll have trade deals worth 1/3 of world GDP. Has to be bad. I mean the EU has shrunk by $3.2tn this year and is currently 18% of world GDP by 2020 values. By end 2021 it is estimated that the EU will be just over 16% of world GDP by 2021 values.

The UK, doing so bad as always.