Canada is trying to patch up frayed relations with the Japanese government after holding out on signing a major Pacific Rim trade deal championed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Tensions flared between the two countries after Canada effectively blocked progress on a deal to salvage the Trans Pacific Partnership, an 11-nation trade deal anchored by Japan after U.S. President Donald Trump quit the pact. Canada continues to push for revisions that leave the deal, created in part as a check on China’s economic clout, in limbo -- days before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to China himself...
Canada ruffled feathers when it balked at an agreement to save the TPP, since rebranded as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)...
Japan took the unusual step of issuing a second statement after Abe met Trudeau in Vietnam earlier this month, specifying that a planned TPP summit had been postponed because the Canadian leader had said he was not ready to endorse an outline agreement reached at ministerial level. Japanese media have since mused about proceeding without Canada.
Canada is pressing in part for changes to cultural rules, while Champagne said the auto sector has been another topic of discussion...
This was excerpted from a 29 November 2017 edition of Bloomberg.