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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Japan ratifies the Trans-Pacific Partnership.