Trans-Pacific Partnership

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Thursday announced Japanese investment of more than $22 billion into the UK, but accepted carmakers' concern about Brexit trade rules as he confirmed talks with the European Union.    

The UK will join 11 other countries in a major Asia-Pacific trade partnership, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on March 31, in the country's biggest post-Brexit trade deal following nearly two years of talks

By Carl Bildt *

In 2015, the US had a trade policy that tried to fashion the global trade system of the future.

On Monday, President Donald Trump told the Congress that the United States and Japan are ready to enter into a restricted trade agreement that will reduce some of the bilateral tariffs and set conditions for digital commerce, Wall Street Journal reports.

In the fall of 2016, both the Republican and Democratic candidates for the US presidency came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge trade deal that would have tied together economies comprising roughly 40 percent of global GDP. Donald Trump would go on to withdraw the US from TPP in his very first week in office. The "America First" era had officially begun.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States would only join the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade deal his administration walked away from last year, if it offered "substantially better" terms than those provided under previous negotiations.

Eleven countries including Japan and Canada signed a landmark Asia-Pacific trade agreement without the United States on March 8 in what one minister called a powerful signal against protectionism and trade wars.

As the United States, Canada and Mexico kick off negotiations on Aug. 16 to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement, the biggest uncertainty is whether a deal can pass President Donald Trump's "America First" test.

The European Union's top trade official said on July 1 that a Japan-EU free trade deal was "almost there," as the two sides look to ink an agreement seen as a push back against rising protectionism.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom was in Tokyo with agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan for two days of talks with Japanese officials.

Several Asian nations are seeking to bolster informal alliances among themselves, regional diplomats and officials said, unsettled by growing fears that the United States could not be relied on to maintain a buffer against China's assertiveness.