INTRODUCTION

After more than five years of missed deadlines, trade ministers from the twelve participating Asia-Pacific countries meeting in Atlanta finally concluded negotiations surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on 5 October 2015. A month later, the much anticipated negotiated text of almost 6,000 pages was finally released to the public on 5 November 2015 (New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade 2016). The final text of the TPP agreement consists of thirty chapters covering a whole gamut of trade and trade-related issues. In addition to areas traditionally covered in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the TPP also addresses new trade and cross-cutting issues.

The public fanfare accompanying the original announcement led many to believe the agreement would soon come into force. The same fanfare again accompanied the signing of the agreement in Auckland on 4 February 2016. Several countries, including Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines, have already expressed their interest in joining the TPP. Yet there is a long way to go and a lot that needs to be done before it can come into force. And there is no certainty that it will either. In this chapter, we examine two interrelated issues: (i) what the TPP has achieved on paper, and what it has not; and (ii) where we go from here, as in the next steps involved, including the likely fate of the TPP itself.

The remainder of the chapter is divided into six sections. To set the backdrop, we begin by looking at the current trade architecture among the member countries, by examining the trade agreements that exist between them at the time of the signing of the TPP agreement. In large measure, this will determine the incremental impact that the TPP is likely to have on members, but also non-members. This is Section 2. It has been widely reported how the TPP had missed several deadlines, and how negotiations had come close to collapse before being eventually concluded. Section 3 looks at why it took so long to conclude negotiations. This analysis provides insight into what the TPP ended up looking like. Section 4 examines the key aspects of the TPP in terms of what it has, and has not, been able to achieve. The steps involved in turning the TPP into a reality, and the likelihood of achieving this, is the subject of Section 5. A final section concludes.