At 2am this morning, Singapore time - or 3pm on a Chilean afternoon - the remaining 11 members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) met in Santiago to sign the revised trade pact, definitively overcoming the existential threat posed by the withdrawal of the United States in January last year.
The trade pact is unarguably diminished by the loss of its largest partner. Yet, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which replaces it is nonetheless a significant achievement - and perhaps of greater importance than before, given growing protectionism today.
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