UK Joins Trans-Pacific Trade Bloc To Boost GDP By A Puny 0.1%

Britain has reached an agreement to join a major free trade bloc in the Pacific region.

Photo Insert: The UK Government's application to join the CPTPP was sent directly by Former Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss.

The country will become the first new member, and the first in Europe, to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) since it came into force in 2018, Michael Rios and Michelle Toh reported for CNN.

Although the government called the agreement its “biggest trade deal since Brexit,” its own estimates show that joining the CPTPP will increase UK economic output by less than 0.1% in the long run, or over approximately 15 years.

“We are at our heart an open and free-trading nation, and this deal demonstrates the real economic benefits of our post-Brexit freedoms,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Friday.

The bloc is home to more 500 million people and will be worth 15% of global GDP once the United Kingdom joins, Sunak’s office said.

The CPTPP is a free trade agreement with 11 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam.

It succeeded the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after the United States withdrew under former President Donald Trump in 2017, who was drubbed by Joe Biden in the 2020 elections, Olesya Dmitracova and Hanna Ziady also reported for CNN.

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