CPTPP: UK accepted into Indo-Pacific trade bloc in biggest trade deal since Brexit
The UK has been accepted into an Indo-Pacific trade bloc in what the government says is its biggest trade deal since Brexit.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement between 11 countries across the Indo-Pacific, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – and now the UK.
The partnership sees the countries open up their markets to one another, reducing trade barriers and tariffs, with the hope of bolstering the economies of its members.
Sunak hails UK joining CPTPP – live politics updates
Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said the UK’s accession to the CPTPP was formally confirmed in a telephone call between her and counterparts from the group at 1am BST on Friday.
The UK is the first European country to enter the agreement, and the government claims it will lead to a £1.8bn boost to the economy “in the long run”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the deal shows “what we can achieve when we unleash the benefits of Brexit”.
While the UK already has trade agreements with most of the CPTPP members, apart from Malaysia, UK officials said it would deepen existing arrangements, with 99% of UK goods exported to the bloc now eligible for zero tariffs.
This includes cheese, cars, chocolate, machinery, gin and whisky, while Downing Street said the services industry would also enjoy “reduced red tape and greater access to growing Pacific markets”.
The deal has been praised by a number of business groups, including the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Standard Chartered bank and the world’s second-largest wine and spirits seller Pernod Ricard.
But other trade experts have warned it will not make up for the economic hit caused by leaving the European Union.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said joining the CPTPP is a “massive opportunity” for British exporters and shows “our influence in this part of the world is becoming more significant”.
Ms Badenoch told Sky News the difference between being part of the CPTPP and the EU is “we make the rules and regulations on our standards”.
She promised the deal is “not going to displace farmers in the UK” and said it will provide more competition for EU countries so “people don’t have to buy what they don’t want”.
Ms Badenoch admitted the lower tariffs will apply to palm oil, which is responsible for destroying orangutan habitats, but said you “have to make trade-offs” when doing a deal and said the UK currently buys 1% of Malaysia’s exports and “moving to 2% from 1% is not what is going to cause deforestation.”
She claimed the UK will have “more influence” on sustainability as part of the bloc – despite Greenpeace calling the deal “outrageous”.
“Palm oil is actually a great product, it’s in so many of the things we use,” she added.
“This is not some illegal substance we’re talking about and actually there are other crops in the EU that are causing deforestation that fit within EU rules.”
The UK began negotiations to join the bloc in September 2021 when Boris Johnson was in Downing Street.
The signatory countries of the CPTPP are home to 500 million people and the government claims the deal will be worth £11 trillion in GDP, accounting for 15% of global GDP.
However, critics said the impact will be limited, with official estimates suggesting it will add just £1.8bn a year to the UK economy after 10 years, representing less than 1% of UK GDP.
Mr Sunak said the agreement “puts the UK at the centre of a dynamic and growing group of Pacific economies”.
“We are at our heart an open and free-trading nation, and this deal demonstrates the real economic benefits of our post-Brexit freedoms,” he added.
“As part of CPTPP, the UK is now in a prime position in the global economy to seize opportunities for new jobs, growth and innovation.”
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‘Real milestone for British industry’
The announcement was welcomed by business group the CBI which called it “a real milestone for the UK and for British industry”.
Interim general director Matthew Fell said: “Not only does the agreement provide greater access to a group of fast growth economies representing 14% of global GDP and over 500 million consumers, but membership reinforces the UK’s commitment to building partnerships in an increasingly fragmented world.
“CPTPP countries and business need to work together to future-proof the rules-based trading system and stimulate growth with a focus on digital, services and resilient supply chains.”
Labour said the agreement represented “encouraging” progress but it needed to see details.
The party’s shadow trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “The Conservative government’s track record in striking good trade deals is desperately poor.
“Other countries joining CPTPP arrangements have secured important safeguards and put in place support for their producers: it is vital that ministers set out if they plan to do the same.”
Singapore is one of the now-12 members of the CPTPP
‘EU should be priority’
The Institute of Directors said it was “vital the UK signs trade deals to restore our international reputation since Brexit”.
But it added “complete reorientation” to the Indo-Pacific would not solve “the very real problem that businesses currently face – namely that they have many more trade related challenges than they did six years ago”.
“From our surveys, directors have told us that the EU-UK relationship is a priority issue the government needs to address in order to support business,” they said.
“UK companies still rely on the long-established links they have with EU markets, which are directly on our doorstep and with whom they have closer historical ties.
“The Indo-Pacific strategy will open up important opportunities for UK businesses, but the government must not forfeit the significance of our relationship with the EU in order to do so.”
Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.
Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.
His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Gaza latest: UK calls out Israel for ‘manmade catastrophe’
Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.
A child attempts to access food from a charity kitchen in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident. The report dismissed as wholly inaccurate, based on biased, inaccurate data and influenced not by fact, but by the whims of Hamas.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees humanitarian efforts in Gaza, claimed the IPC had ignored its data and presented a “one-sided report”, before claiming that “hundreds of truckloads of aid are still awaiting collection by the UN and international organisations”.
What is so striking is that there is no grey area between these two versions.
In one, Israel has obstructed the delivery of aid and allowed hunger to turn into famine; in the other, it is Hamas that has caused the crisis by stealing aid and exploiting hunger as a political tool to try to win global sympathy.
People in Beit Lahia take sacks of flour from an aid convoy en route to Gaza City. Pic: AP
Journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza, so we are reliant on the work of colleagues who live there.
But the images are striking – emaciated people holding begging bowls, people scrambling towards aid drops or clambering over trucks carrying bags of flour. And all around them, shattered buildings.
Aid is continuing to be dropped by air, but humanitarian groups say it is not enough. Pic: Reuters
We heard from a man in his 70s, who used to weigh 70kg, but who has lost almost half his body weight.
“Now, because of malnutrition, my weight has dropped to just 40,” Hassan Abu Seble said. “I suffered both a stroke and a heart attack. They had to put in a stent to help me recover, and I thank God that my organs are still functioning.”
The Israeli government, and many across the country, will maintain that Hamas bears the responsibility for everything that has happened to Gazans – that it was the attack on 7 October, 2023, that was the sole precipitant for the suffering, death and hunger that has followed.
But from around much of the rest of the world, the condemnation is deafening, accusing Israel of allowing famine to fester.
The body of a child is carried from the scene of an Israeli military strike in Gaza City. Pic: AP
David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, said the Israeli government had caused a “man-made famine” by blocking the distribution of aid, and described that as a “moral outrage”.
The question, as so often before, is what that rhetoric leads to. And, so long as the United States doesn’t join the chorus of disapproval, does widespread global disapproval mean anything?
There is also a question now of Gaza’s future.
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In the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, we found a large sign that says “Make Gaza Jewish Again”. It is a slogan, and a sentiment, that is supported by plenty.
“Yes, of course I agree,” says one man as he walks past, carrying a large pack of drinks. It turns out that he used to live in a Jewish settlement in Gaza until it was shut by the Israeli government two decades ago, but he has never stopped believing that Gaza is rightly Israel’s property.
“The people there now – they should leave. They could go to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt. It is our land. And yes, I would like to go back there.”
He did not believe there was a famine. “They have lots of food,” he told me.
Another man, Avraham, was more conciliatory, but insisted there had never been a country like Israel “that is fighting a war against a country but is also sending in so much humanitarian aid for the people”.
Gaza City is now the focal point of so much. Famine is spreading from this heart just as troops prepare to encircle the city. A ceasefire could come, but so could a huge military assault. And all the while, the hunger will get worse.
Approval of a huge new Chinese embassy in London has been delayed by the government over redacted areas on the embassy’s plans.
Beijing hasn’t fully explained why there are blacked-out areas in its planning application after housing minister Angela Rayner demanded an explanation earlier this month.
The government has now delayed its decision over whether construction can go ahead from 9 September to 21 October, saying it needed more time to consider the application.
The Chinese embassy in London expressed “serious concern” over the delay and said host countries have an “international obligation” to support the construction of diplomatic buildings.
“The Chinese side urges the UK side to fulfil its obligation and approve the planning application without delay,” said the embassy in a statement.
Site of planned Chinese embassy
Royal Mint Court, the site of the proposed embassy. File pic: PA
DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans.
It added that additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why several areas were blacked out.
Protests have been held outside the proposed site. File pic: Feb 2025, PA
“The Applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses,” said DP9 in a letter to the government.
“In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details.”
The embassy, which would be the largest in Europe, is planned for the 216-year-old site of the old Royal Mint Court next to the Tower of London.
However, opposition from local residents, lawmakers and pro-democracy campaigners means planning approval has been delayed for the past three years.
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Earlier this month, the embassy described claims that the building could have “secret facilities” used to harm Britain’s
national security as “despicable slandering”.
However, the executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which has ties to a network of politicians critical of the country, called the explanations “far from satisfactory”.
Luke de Pulford, who is a long-standing critic of the embassy plans, said the “assurances amount to ‘trust me bro'”.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
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