Expectations were high as trade ministers of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific (CPTPP) gathered in Melbourne, Australia, in late November 2025, during what has been an unprecedented year for global trade. U.S. President Trump’s tariff spree has shaken the foundations of the multilateral trade order. China’s newly tightened export controls on critical minerals have threatened to grind global manufacturing dependent on Chinese supplies to a halt. Against this backdrop of trade disruptions, the CPTPP, made up of small and medium-sized nations dependent on trade, has an opportunity to shore up the rules-based foundations underpinning global commerce.
The Melbourne summit also mattered because it hosted two inaugural dialogues between the CPTPP and the EU and ASEAN, respectively. In an op-ed in The Economist published just days ahead of the summit, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for “creative ‘docking’ arrangements between [trading] blocs” such as the EU and CPTPP to make faster progress on trade integration. More generally, co-ordination between major free-trade areas is seen as a possible alternative and counterweight to Chinese and American protectionism and power plays. Did the summit meet the moment?
The CPTPP – An open plurilateral with global appeal
When Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, many predicted the pact’s demise. The Agreement had been conceived as a geopolitical endeavour to cement the U.S.’s economic pivot to Asia. Its text copied heavily from prior U.S. free trade agreements reflecting President Obama’s mantra that “if we don’t write the rules for trade … China will.” Without U.S. backing and the appeal of its large consumer market, it was unclear whether the TPP could survive. However, under Japan’s leadership, the remaining TPP members salvaged the agreement in 2018 and turned it into the CPTPP.
Today, unexpectedly, it is precisely the absence of the United States that contributes to the CPTPP’s widening appeal. What started as a regional project is increasingly becoming a global tent for trade-dependent small and medium-sized economies. In 2024, the United Kingdom acceded. Accession negotiations with Costa Rica are ongoing. In Melbourne, CPTPP members approved proceeding with Uruguay’s accession talks, with an expectation that, in 2026, similar negotiations will start with the Philippines, Indonesia and, most intriguingly, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
A growing and more geographically diverse membership is changing the nature of the pact. The CPTPP is moving away from its Pacific origins and is morphing into a truly global trading arrangement. Furthermore, the possible addition of the first Gulf country, the UAE, would open the agreement to the Middle East and to the investment and trade resources of the Gulf. At a time when the WTO is weakened by deadlock, the CPTPP is rapidly emerging as the premier gathering of small and medium-sized countries committed to global trade.
Accession prospects for China continue to look dim
If part of the CPTPP’s appeal has been the absence of economic superpowers, China’s bid to accede, submitted in 2021, is putting the Agreement’s potential at risk. Yet, as a self-professed club of rules-based traders, how could CPTPP members accept some applicants, like the UAE, while shutting the door to China? On that front, too, the Melbourne summit made progress.
In 2023, CPTPP members agreed to the “Auckland Principles” that spell out three accession criteria: (1) an ability to meet the Agreement’s high standards; (2) an established record of complying with trade commitments; and (3) and consensus of the CPTPP Membership. China remains unlikely to clear that bar.
In a thinly veiled rebuke to China’s ambitions, CPTPP ministers gathering in Vancouver in 2024 condemned economic coercion and determined that “economic coercion is not in keeping with the high standards of the Agreement, or expectations of CPTPP membership.” This language, now reproduced in the Melbourne Statement, provides objective grounds to distinguish between applicants and to deny China membership prospects based on its continuous weaponization of supply chains.
The fact that the CPTPP will remain, for now, a grouping without China or the United States should further boost the pact's appeal to medium-sized trading nations that seek to navigate geopolitical tensions without choosing sides.
Saving the WTO
U.S. policymakers and commentators have begun treating the WTO as largely irrelevant. China, while paying lip service to multilateralism, has increasingly adopted unilateral import and export restrictions that conflict with the spirit, and sometimes the letter, of WTO rules. Yet, as the Melbourne Statement shows, the rest of the world has not given up on the WTO just yet. Both the CPTPP ministerial statement and the CPTPP dialogues with ASEAN and the EU reaffirm the rules-based trading system “with the World Trade Organization at its core.”
The gathering in Melbourne also signalled support for several ongoing WTO negotiations and reform initiatives, notably plurilateral talks on electronic commerce and investment facilitation. The declarations additionally commit the CPTPP, ASEAN, and EU states to an extension of the WTO moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. That is important. Contentious even among some ASEAN countries, the moratorium is at risk of expiring at the next WTO Ministerial in March 2026. The Melbourne gathering thus shows – at least on paper – that a critical mass of countries continues to firmly support the rules-based multilateral trading order and is invested in its ongoing reform.
CPTPP-EU and CPTPP-ASEAN dialogues
The inaugural high-level dialogues between the CPTPP and the EU, and between the CPTPP and ASEAN, that took place at the sidelines were perhaps the most anticipated element of the summit. The much-discussed potential “docking” of trade blocs urged by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Carney was left to another day. Instead, two nearly identical statements were issued reaffirming the groupings’ support for the WTO and calling for closer co-operation on digital trade, resilient supply chains, and investment facilitation between them. The CPTPP-ASEAN statement contains a unique section on regulatory coherence, while the CPTPP-EU statement includes a unique section on trade diversification, reflecting different priorities.
The CPTPP-EU statement also includes a promising commitment to develop “workplans on areas of co-operation of mutual interest.” But more concrete actions on how to deepen co-operation between the blocs were kicked down the road. The upcoming WTO Ministerial Conference in Cameroon in March will be a test of whether the three blocs can form a cohesive coalition to support rules-based trade and achieve progress on WTO reform.
What is missing?
The statements do not explicitly mention either U.S. tariffs or China’s weaponization of export controls and refer only in general terms to collectively opposing economic coercion. That should come as no surprise. ASEAN, EU, and CPTPP members have complex trade and security dependencies with both China and the United States and can thus be expected to avoid direct confrontation.
The blocs, however, could have done more to address rising trade restrictions amongst themselves. President Trump’s tariff wall has led to significant trade diversion, with Chinese exports flooding CPTPP, ASEAN, and EU markets, which, in turn, have prompted a rise in new trade restrictions. The steel industry is the canary in the coal mine after being hit by particularly high U.S. tariffs of 50 per cent: both Canada and the EU are rolling out tariff-rate quotas that will restrict steel trade, including on CPTPP countries. Broader “Buy Canadian” and “Buy European” measures risk further eroding trade within and between the blocs. As a result, CPTPP, ASEAN, and the EU should consult to mitigate damage done by trade diversion.
Proliferating bilateral U.S. deals that contain new transshipment rules and harsh economic security commitments could also jeopardize trade within and between the blocs. Washington is creating a hub-and-spoke system in which bilateral agreements grant varying levels of access to the U.S. market. Tightly regulated trade with third states, including through transshipment duties of 40 per cent and highly restrictive rules of origin, puts regional value chains at risk and makes trade integration among the spokes increasingly difficult. Added to this are economic-security provisions. The recently concluded U.S.–Malaysia deal commits Malaysia to align its import restrictions and export controls with those of the United States whenever U.S. national security interests so require. While these provisions are primarily aimed at China, such alignment could also equally disrupt trade among ASEAN, CPTPP, and EU members – a possibility that should be taken more seriously in their dialogue.
Tortoise or hare?
The Trump administration has upended the global trading system in a matter of months, and China is quickly tightening the screws on its rare earth exports. Compared to the unprecedented pace of these trade disruptions, the Melbourne Statement lacks a sense of urgency. That is both vice and virtue.
References to the centrality of the WTO and the affirmation of rules-based trade at the Melbourne summit can appear naïve or outdated, like ritualistic incantations of a bygone age. Yet, there is also value in normalcy, continuity, and predictability. The multilateral trading order may well outlive current trade disruptions and the Trump presidency, which, far from transformational, may come to be seen as a distraction. It certainly has served as a rallying moment for small and medium-sized economies that depend on trade to support the existing multilateral trading system.
But just holding on to the status quo ante will be insufficient. Success or failure will depend on whether CPTPP, ASEAN, and the EU can succeed in overcoming the challenges that contributed to the current crisis – institutional inertia and outdatedness at the WTO, supply chain concentrations, and a failure to fairly distribute the gains from trade. These are long-term challenges that require patience as much as sustained attention, which are not strengths of the moving-fast-and-break-things Trump administration.
Greater haste is, however, required in some areas – especially when it comes to insulating supply chains between CPTPP, ASEAN and the EU from disruptions. Otherwise, there is a real risk that geopolitical confrontation and protectionism will spill over and disrupt trade between the free traders. Prime Minister Carney has recognized the need for action and has instructed his personal representative, John Hannaford, to work with the incoming CPTPP Vietnam presidency to “deliver concrete results early next year.” Supply chain resilience, including by sustained efforts to substitute suppliers from outside the blocs with suppliers from within in areas of vulnerability such as critical minerals, should be a top priority.
In short, to truly meet the moment, the defenders of rules-based trade still have work to do.
