‘Global Britain’ takes shape as CPTPP membership is to be formally sought

Britain has announced that it will formally seek to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) next week. This is the biggest post-Brexit reorientation yet, signalling a radical shift in British interest towards what is economically the world’s fastest growing region.

In economic terms the opportunities and challenges of potential membership are multitude; CPTPP aims to eliminate 95% of tariffs, though allows members to implement protectionist policies on certain key industries. Its members also are not required to have identical regulations and standards. This can be a double-edged sword for the UK, as while prices for British consumers may fall, British exporters may find themselves struggling to compete domestically, and in the bloc. Particularly as the CPTPP’s geographic distance from the UK means increased ‘in-built’ costs from comparative travel time for UK exports, though this might be off-set somewhat by the opening of Arctic shipping lanes, cutting shipping times by up to 2 weeks.     

CPTPP’s key strength for the UK is that it’s more of a distant investment. UK trade with the bloc is currently £111 billion, growing 8% a year since 2016, and while this still only counts for 9% of total UK experts, far less than UK trade with Germany, let alone the EU, CPTPP includes the fastest growing economies in the world. Its future potential is large, especially as the bloc also loosens digital and service restrictions too, dynamic markets which are UK strengths.

The overall degree of economic benefit for Britain though is much dependent on its own future economic restructuring and business adaptability, which might prove politically difficult for any government as highlighted by the recent climb-down on re-looking at UK workers’ rights.      

In political terms, membership could also provide a ‘back-door’ for Britain to get a beneficial trade deal with the USA by default, avoiding problems with the imbalance of power and stringent US demands, if as expected Biden reapplies to the bloc.

The big political risk though is that membership puts UK interests directly in the path of its growing rival China, and with Britain inevitably increasing its Pacific presence, there is wider scope for issues arising between the UK and China which increase regional and global instability.