Even without the United States, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal should be kept alive and the remaining 11 member countries — including Singapore — should look at renegotiating the pact to exclude the world’s economic superpower, several trade experts and business leaders said yesterday.

Citing the vast opportunities in investments, digital trade and the services sector which the TPP will bring, they argued that it will be a worthwhile endeavour to come up with a new deal even though the process could take anywhere from weeks to years, depending on how extensive the changes will be.

On Monday, newly-inaugurated US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to formally withdraw the US from the TPP trade pact, which took seven years of negotiations before it was signed in February last year.

… Assistant Professor Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit from Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies pointed out that beyond the access to the US market, there are other benefits Singapore can reap from the agreement. For example, the TPP’s investment chapter “not only pursues investment liberalisation but also has a strong investment protection mechanism” to protect Singapore’s overseas investment in the TPP nations, she said.