From Digital Empires to Common Ground: Digital Trade Convergence Between the EU and CPTPP

Although the US withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017, the agreement that emerged from it (the CPTPP) largely retains the US imprint, particularly in electronic commerce. Chapter 14 prioritizes open cross-border data flows, discourages data localization, and minimizes regulatory barriers to digital trade. These principles mirror the US digital governance approach (at least at that time), which favours limited intervention rather than comprehensive rights-based regulation or state-directed control (Polanco Lazo & Gómez Fiedler, 2017). In principle, this could raise questions about the prospect of EU-CPTPP digital trade integration.

From Digital Empires to Common Ground: Digital Trade Convergence Between the EU and CPTPP