TPPA

TPPA stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a regional trade agreement negotiated among Pacific Rim economies. Initiated in the 2000s and finalized in the mid-2010s, the treaty aimed to promote trade liberalization and deeper economic integration by reducing tariffs and establishing common rules on trade, investment, intellectual property, and regulatory coherence across its members. The negotiations involved twelve economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

Key provisions covered goods and services trade, investment protections including investor-state dispute settlement, intellectual property protections, government procurement, e-commerce, competition policy, and labor and environmental standards. The treaty was controversial in several countries, with critics arguing it could constrain domestic policy and sovereignty.

In 2017 the United States announced its withdrawal from the agreement, affecting the original framework. In March 2018 the remaining eleven economies signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a renegotiated pact that preserves most TPPA provisions but suspends or modifies a number of them in light of the United States’ absence. The CPTPP entered into force for several signatories in late 2018 and has since expanded to include all member economies. The TPPA name is sometimes used historically or interchangeably with the TPP, but in practice the modern framework is CPTPP.