U.S. POLICY EXPERTS WANTS BIDEN TO REJOIN TPP IN SLAP TO TRUMP

A bipartisan group of US policy experts called for Washington's return to a vast Pacific free trade deal and the inclusion of Japan in the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance as part of efforts to advance US-Japan relations amid China's rise, Kyodo news service reported.

"The US should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to align with Japan as leaders in shaping economic rules," said the group, chaired by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye, a former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, in a report discussing the trade pact originally known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

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The TPP was widely seen as a counterweight against China's growing economic clout in the Asia-Pacific region, but President Donald Trump, who has pursued his "America First" policy, pulled the United States out of the deal shortly after taking office in 2017 as he saw it as a "job-killing" arrangement. Without the US, Japan and the other 10 remaining members such as Australia moved to salvage most of the TPP agreement, now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP.

The report said the CPTPP is "an essential vehicle for the US to recapture regional economic space and work with Japan to bolster leadership on economic rulemaking," while warning that any strategy in the Indo-Pacific will be "empty and unsustainable" without a "robust economic component." US President-elect Joe Biden, formerly vice president under Barack Obama who championed the TPP, suggested during a debate event last year that joining the CPTPP will require renegotiation in some areas.