This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 8, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said it is unrealistic to expect the US to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because President Donald Trump is insisting on a better deal for his country.

“It’s obvious that the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) in the current form is not up to the expectations of the Americans,” the minister said, referring to the rebranded TPP negotiated by the remaining 11 member states after the US withdrew from the pact.

“He (Trump) wants it to be improved. So he will only consider if the terms of the agreement are improved,” said Mustapa. “But for Malaysia, we have gone very far in the negotiations and that is the maximum that we can go. Malaysia is in no position to make further concessions in the agreement.”

Mustapa told reporters this when asked to comment on Trump’s recent statement that he would consider re-entering the TPP if he got a “substantially better” deal.

Trump, who withdrew the US from the agreement by executive order in one of his first acts as president in January 2017, made the comment to American news agency CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The revised TPP was concluded on Jan 23 and is expected to be signed by the member countries in Chile on March 8.

Mustapa said even without the participation of the US, Malaysia still stood to benefit from the agreement as it would open up the markets in the other 10 member countries.

“We ran down the numbers again after the exclusion of US, and we believe that Malaysia will still benefit from the smaller TPP. There continues to be better market access coming from countries like Canada and Mexico, two countries with which we do not have any free trade agreements,” he said.

“Beyond that, CPTPP is also about common standards which are very important for international trade. The standards are about improvements in governance, trade facilitation and economic cooperation,” Mustapa said.

Besides that, Mustapa noted that Malaysia was in talks with partners in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which was expected to be concluded this year.

Malaysia, he added, was also considering expanding its bilateral free trade agreements with Turkey and Pakistan. Another potential bilateral free trade agreement that is expected to materialise this year is with Sri Lanka.