Världens största handelsavtal i sikte 2020

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region between the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and their five FTA partners (Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea). India, ASEAN's sixth FTA partner, opted out of the agreement in 2019. RCEP negotiations were formally launched in November 2012 at the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia. In 2017, the 16 prospective signatories (including India) accounted for a population of 3.4 billion people with a total Gross Domestic Product (GDP, PPP) of $49.5 trillion, about half of the world population and 39 percent of the world's GDP.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN; AH-see-ahn, AH-zee-ahn) is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising ten countries in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration among its members and other countries in Asia. ASEAN also regularly engages other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. A major partner of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, ASEAN maintains a global network of alliances and dialogue partners and is considered by many as a global powerhouse, the central union for cooperation in Asia-Pacific, and a prominent and influential organization. It is involved in numerous international affairs, and hosts diplomatic missions throughout the world. The ASEAN Secretariat is located at Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, is a defunct proposed trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States signed on 4 February 2016, which was not ratified as required and did not take effect. After the United States withdrew its signature, the agreement could not enter into force. The remaining nations negotiated a new trade agreement called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incorporates most of the provisions of the TPP and which entered into force on 30 December 2018. The TPP began as an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) signed by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in 2005. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the negotiating countries to twelve. In January 2017, the United States withdrew from the agreement. The other 11 TPP countries agreed in May 2017 to revive it and reached agreement in January 2018. In March 2018, the 11 countries signed the revised version of the agreement, called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. After ratification by six of them (Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore), the agreement came into force for those countries on 30 December 2018. The original TPP contained measures to lower both non-tariff and tariff barriers to trade, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. The U.S. International Trade Commission, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the World Bank and the Office of the Chief Economist at Global Affairs Canada found the final agreement would, if ratified, lead to net positive economic outcomes for all signatories, while an analysis using an alternative methodology by two Tufts University economists found the agreement would adversely affect the signatories. Many observers have argued the trade deal would have served a geopolitical purpose, namely to reduce the signatories' dependence on Chinese trade and bring the signatories closer to the United States.