Leaders of Canada and Japan hailed the success and benefits of the 11-country trade pact when they met in Ottawa on Sunday. Under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said beef exports to Japan nearly tripled.
Trudeau added, the pact “has benefited tremendously Canadian citizens, Japanese citizens and businesses and indeed people throughout the region.” And, that “stands in stark contrast with the United States withdrawal … continuing to move forward on freer more open trade, according to the rules we can all agree on, is something we need more in the world.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also said the CPTPP “should be a model going forward,” describing it as a meaningful way “to disseminate a 21st century type of free and fair rules-based (trade).”
Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the former version of CPTPP, as one of the first moves after taking office more two years ago. As of the meeting between Trump and Abe last Friday, the US and Japan are still working on a trade deal.
Trump said the deal “can go fairly quickly” and negotiations are “moving along very nicely and we’ll see what happens”. He also said “we’ll be discussing very strongly agriculture because, as the prime minister knows, Japan puts very massive tariffs on our agriculture…and we want to get rid of those tariffs.”
