| Summary/Abstract |
THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (TPP) agreement* was signed in October 2015 by 12 member countries of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. The TPP is a brainchild of the United States, which was concerned about its declining influence on the economies and politics of Asia-Pacific countries, about the growing economic and political power of China in the region [1], about the East Asian Economic Community agreement, which is part of the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) accord, and about the collapse of the Free Trade Area for Americas (FTAA) initiative [2]. The United States sees the TPP as an instrument for achieving its long-term goal of bringing into being the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), an agreement whose signatory countries would be fewer in number than
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