Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won parliamentary approval Friday for ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, despite U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's plan to withdraw from the 12-nation trade pact.

Upper house lawmakers approved the TPP on Friday, heeding Abe's calls to push ahead with it despite Trump's rejection of the free-trade initiative championed by President Barack Obama.

Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has an ample majority in both houses of parliament. Ratification of needed regulatory revisions by the Cabinet is expected soon.

The market opening measures required by the trade pact are seen as a way for Abe to push through difficult reforms of the agricultural and health sectors. So far, Abe has made scant progress on a slew of changes he has proposed to help improve Japan's lagging productivity and competitiveness.

Trump has vowed to take steps to exit the pact right after he takes office.

A U.S. withdrawal would kill the trade pact unless its terms are revised. The agreement between the dozen members requires both the U.S. and Japan to join to attain the required 85 percent of the group's total GDP since the U.S. economy accounts for 60 percent of that total, and Japan less than 20 percent.

After expending political capital to fight vested interests fearful of market opening and reforms likely to be required by the trade pact, Abe and other leaders in Asia have bemoaned the impending loss of the U.S. as TPP flag bearer.

"We want to carry this out and expect others will follow suit," Abe recently told a parliamentary committee.

An opposition lawmaker, Eri Tokunaga, derided Abe's insistence on going ahead with ratification as "egocentric."

"There is basically zero chance of this coming into effect since the next president, Trump, plans to leave it," Tokunaga told fellow lawmakers Friday.

Leaders in New Zealand and several other countries have said they still hope to find a way to rescue the initiative.

The TPP was meant to help give the U.S. a leading role in setting trade rules reaching beyond tariffs and other conventional trade barriers. It's possible demise could spur faster progress on another, much less discussed trade agreement called the RCEP, or Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. That trade grouping includes no countries from the Americas but all the big hitters in Asia: China, India, Japan, South Korea as well as Australia, New Zealand and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.</s>Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe listens to questions during a special committee on the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the parliament's upper house in Tokyo on Friday, Dec. 9, 2016. Abe won parliamentary approval Friday for ratification of the TPP, despite U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's plan to withdraw from the 12-nation trade pact.

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won parliamentary approval Friday for ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, despite U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's plan to withdraw from the 12-nation trade pact.

Upper house lawmakers approved the TPP on Friday, heeding Abe's calls to push ahead with it despite Trump's rejection of the free-trade initiative championed by President Barack Obama.

Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has an ample majority in both houses of parliament. Ratification of needed regulatory revisions by the Cabinet is expected soon.

The market opening measures required by the trade pact are seen as a way for Abe to push through difficult reforms of the agricultural and health sectors. So far, Abe has made scant progress on a slew of changes he has proposed to help improve Japan's lagging productivity and competitiveness.

Trump has vowed to take steps to exit the pact right after he takes office.

A U.S. withdrawal would kill the trade pact unless its terms are revised. The agreement between the dozen members requires both the U.S. and Japan to join to attain the required 85 percent of the group's total GDP since the U.S. economy accounts for 60 percent of that total, and Japan less than 20 percent.

After expending political capital to fight vested interests fearful of market opening and reforms likely to be required by the trade pact, Abe and other leaders in Asia have bemoaned the impending loss of the U.S. as TPP flag bearer.

"We want to carry this out and expect others will follow suit," Abe recently told a parliamentary committee.

An opposition lawmaker, Eri Tokunaga, derided Abe's insistence on going ahead with ratification as "egocentric."

"There is basically zero chance of this coming into effect since the next president, Trump, plans to leave it," Tokunaga told fellow lawmakers Friday.

Leaders in New Zealand and several other countries have said they still hope to find a way to rescue the initiative.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that TPP was important for establishing trade rules in the Asia-Pacific and it was in everyone's interest who has signed on to it to see it come into effect. He said that regardless of what happens in the U.S., "the rest of the world is moving forward."

The TPP was meant to help give the U.S. a leading role in setting trade rules reaching beyond tariffs and other conventional trade barriers. It's possible demise could spur faster progress on another, much less discussed trade agreement called the RCEP, or Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. That trade grouping includes no countries from the Americas but all the big hitters in Asia: China, India, Japan, South Korea as well as Australia, New Zealand and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.</s>Japan on Friday ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade pact aimed at linking a dozen Pacific Rim nations, hoping it will one day take effect despite President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge that the United States will withdraw from it.

The TPP, which aims to cut trade barriers in some of Asia’s fastest-growing economies but does not include China, can not take effect without the United States.

The deal, which has been five years in the making, requires ratification by at least six countries accounting for 85 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of the member nations.

Given the sheer size of the American economy, the deal cannot go ahead without U.S. participation.

It has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate and Trump last month promised to withdraw from it after he is inaugurated in January. Instead, he would replace it with bilaterally negotiated trade deals.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the TPP would be “meaningless without the United States”.

But by ratifying the deal in parliament on Friday, Japan is signalling it hopes the accord can be resuscitated when conditions are more favourable.

Government officials said the trade pact would essentially go into deep freeze but that they would not abandon hope of reviving it in future.

Taro Kono, a senior lawmaker of Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said there was a chance that Trump would change his mind.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key joked last month that it would be fine with him to rename the agreement Trump Pacific Partnership if that would convince the president-elect to get on board, media reported.</s>Japan ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact on Friday as the ruling camp approved the trade deal and its related legislation in the Upper House, overcoming resistance from the opposition camp.

However, the chance of the free trade deal taking effect is considered very slim because U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw from the agreement as soon as he is sworn in on Jan. 20.

Even Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has admitted that a TPP without the U.S. would be “meaningless.”

The United States economy accounts for as much as 60 percent of the combined gross domestic product of the TPP’s 12 members, including Japan, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Still, Abe’s ruling coalition rushed to ratify the pact, arguing that Japan should take the initiative to stamp out protectionism and act as a standard bearer for new free trade laws around the world.

“It’s very important for us, as a country, to show ideal rules that we believe the world should aim for,” Abe told an Upper House session earlier in the day.

Abe also said that the TPP would set new standards for environmental issues and competitive rules for state-owned enterprises.

For Japan to uphold such a trade pact would have a positive impact on negotiations related to other global free trade agreements, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Abe said.

“It will also positively impact the U.S., which is now in a transition period” ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Abe added.

The TPP does not include China, which is among the countries in the RCEP talks.

Experts have said the TPP would carry strategic importance for Japan in setting new trade rules favorable to it and other countries calling for a global standard for conducting freer trade.

But the TPP will not take effect unless it earns the support of at least six countries that account for 85 percent or more of the combined GDP of the 12 member states. This means the TPP would be nullified if the U.S. withdraws.

Trump has repeatedly bashed the TPP as an unfair agreement that would threaten American jobs, a message that resonates with economically frustrated voters.

At a full session of the Upper House, the Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party voted against the TPP. Most of the support came from the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, and from Nippon Ishin no Kai, a small opposition party that often sides with the ruling camp.

According to the government, the TPP would boost GDP by ¥13.6 trillion and create 795,000 new domestic jobs.

Meanwhile, domestic agricultural production would be reduced by up to ¥210 billion a year, according to the government. Agricultural lobbies, once one of the LDP’s most powerful supporters, have strongly opposed the deal.
Japan ratifies the Trans-Pacific Partnership.