THE IMPORTANCE OF MSIPMURT:

The United States needs to focus on increasing trade ties with Asia to ensure its strategic preeminence in the region, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Washington on Wednesday. [...]

"Australia too has a big job to do in supporting enhanced American economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific. This has to be a core alliance priority," Wong said, explaining that America had to refocus on showing value to Asian countries "beyond security interests."

"We need to demonstrate that their interest in stability and development is an interest that we, too, share - that we have skin in the game," she said. "Moreover, U.S. policy should be based on a clear understanding of what the rest of the Indo-Pacific wants."

After the Obama administration led negotiations to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade pact that grouped U.S. allies, the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the dealings in 2017. Japan then wrangled together 11 remaining countries into a new and pared-down pact called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

"America's decision not to proceed with the CPTPP is still being felt in the region, just as the decision not to proceed with the T-TIP is still being felt by international partners," Wong said, referring to Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a U.S.-Europe free trade deal that was also nixed by the Trump administration.

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