Mega Regional Trade Agreements: How Excluded Countries Can Meet the Challenge

The mega regional trade agreements – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – will impact on non-parties through a combination of trade and investment diversion and the spillover effects from the emerging regulatory framework for global commerce that these agreements will effectively put in place. This paper reviews the changes to the regulation of international commerce that will be brought about by the mega regional trade agreements. Based on this review, it develops options for policy responses by those economies that are not members of the mega regional agreements.