Since the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January the remaining 11 participants in negotiations aimed at creating a multilateral free trade agreement have been discussing the possibility of moving forward without the participation of the Americans.

Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with Canadian Meat Council, says Canadian agriculture has been highly supportive of efforts to resurrect the deal and he is hopeful that, during the next meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Group, that there will be a decision by the TPP-11 ministers to move forward.

Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council

If we would look at the TPP text as it currently exists it would give us a substantive advantage over the United States in accessing the Japanese market for both beef and pork.

There were major improvements to access to Japan included in the TPP.

There were also improvements in access to countries such as Vietnam which are important to us and Malaysia, not to the same extent as Japan but the TPP is a text which we strongly support and we would hope as much as possible of the ordinal text could be implemented one way or the other as quickly as possible.

Mr Davidson says moving forward with the exact text that had been negotiated when the US was part of the discussions is an option or the text could be implemented in a way that would set aside and not immediately implement clauses that were of particular interest to the US or the 11 countries could simply come up with a new text.

Either way, he says, the TPP markets are of great interest, particularly Japan where Australia already has a bilateral agreement and where the European Union is well advanced in negotiating a bilateral agreement.