Chile signs on to TPP11

CHILE - In Brief 24 Feb 2023 by Robert Funk

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In the 1990s and 2000s, signing free trade agreements became almost routine for Chile. But when Chile’s adhesion to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP, or TPP11) finally became official this week, it was a big deal. One of the slogans of Chile’s 2019 Revolution was that ‘Chile has Changed’. The suggestion was that a new generation of Chileans wanted an end to the prevailing political and economic model. The solution would be designing a radically new political arrangement via a new constitution, and questioning long-standing consensus on the country’s open, globalized, market-friendly economy. But the results of the September 4th referendum appeared to imply that the desire for political reengineering wasn’t quite as radical as was thought. Now, everyone from the business class to the government itself celebrates Chile’s admission to TPP11. On the numbers, TPP11 is, and always was, a positive step for Chile. Indeed, the original impulse for a revived TPP came from none other than Heraldo Muñoz, Michelle Bachelet’s foreign minister, back in 2018, and the original agreement was signed in Santiago. It is estimated that some 1,200 Chilean products will have increased access to different markets around the Pacific, especially agricultural and fishing products. On the import side, practically all imports from CPTTP countries already enter the country duty-free, so the cost for Chile is practically null. Why, then, did Chile drag its heels? Some left wing groups argue that TPP11 has always been a corporate-globalist ploy. Gabriel Palma, a Cambridge economist, argues that “The day you want to do something, you will have to ask perm...