While the TPP door may close, others are waiting to be opened

THE withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement should not come as a major surprise. Signs were already afoot long before US President Donald Trump ordered the world's largest economy to exit from the arrangement that the pact's survival was doubtful.

There was no broad support in the US for the 12-member Pacific Rim agreement. The two leading candidates for the presidential election in 2016 had publicly declared their opposition to it. Although actively promoted by former US president Barack Obama, lawmakers from the Democratic Party were never fully behind it. Many of them wanted to have American interests and American workers better served - something not out of line with Mr Trump's own rhetoric.

The TPP deal was signed in February 2016, and was supposed to enter into force if at least six TPP signatories, accounting for 85 per cent of the total gross domestic product of the original 12, ratified it. Without the US, the TPP as it stands cannot come to pass.