TPP's resurrection: Will it be ratified at all?

ON November 11, on the sidelines of the Apec Summit in Vietnam, 11 countries on the Pacific Rim decided to go ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) despite the withdrawal of the United States on the third day after Donald Trump took office.

The deal was renamed "Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership" or CPTPP to reflect the new consensus that had emerged after the four rounds of negotiation since the US withdrawal. Is the CPTPP still a "high-quality agreement"? Will it be finally ratified this time around?

While the details have yet to be worked out, the joint ministerial statement and its annexes suggest that the CPTPP will essentially be a replica of the original TPP. Tariffs schedules are kept as negotiated with custom duties on 95 per cent of trade in goods to be removed in the long run.