Fourteen nations, including Australia, Japan and the United States, expressed support for Canada's bid to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as they concluded on Thursday the first round of in-person negotiations under the U.S.-led initiative for setting trade rules and standards in response to China's growing clout in the region, delegates said.
Senior officials from the IPEF member states "shared their enthusiasm for creating a high-standard agreement that can create sustainable and inclusive economic growth throughout the region," the U.S. government said in a statement following the six-day talks in Brisbane, eastern Australia.
Further in-person negotiations will be held in 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Commerce Department.
The new framework is meant for members to negotiate "commitments" in areas such as trade facilitation, eyeing measures such as simplified customs procedures, without going into tariff-cutting negotiations as seen in traditional free trade agreements.
Members also seek to increase cooperation in the fields of supply chain resilience, infrastructure and clean energy, and tax and anti-corruption efforts.
U.S. officials have shared with other countries negotiating texts on the issues of trade, supply chains and anti-corruption efforts, as well as what they call a "concept paper" on clean energy, the statement said.
The economic framework, launched in May during President Joe Biden's visit to Japan, is part of the U.S. government's bid to re-engage economically with the fast-growing Indo-Pacific.
Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from what was then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal in 2017.
So far, the IPEF has been joined by the United States, Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, which together represent around 40 percent of global gross domestic product.
Many of the IPEF nations and Canada are members of the successor to the TPP, named the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which took effect with 11 members in 2018 following the U.S. withdrawal.
