A recommendation for CPTPP-EU linkages
A recent forum in HCMC heard how links can be strengthened between CPTPP members and the EU for stronger rules-based cooperation.
During discussions at the Canada-Vietnam Forum on Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages, held recently in Ho Chi Minh City, policymakers, trade experts, and business leaders argued that resilience should be built not through isolation but through diversification, trusted partnerships, and stronger rules-based cooperation.
At the center of discussions was the relationship between the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the EU. Together, the two high-standard trading frameworks account for roughly one-third of global GDP and more than one-third of world trade. As the multilateral trading system comes under growing pressure, participants argued that bringing the two frameworks closer together could help strengthen supply chains, improve regulatory compatibility, and reinforce an open, rules-based global economy.
The recurring message throughout the Forum was that economic resilience should no longer be viewed simply as protecting domestic industries or reducing external exposure. Rather, that resilience increasingly depends on expanding trusted networks of trade, investment, and regulatory cooperation.
Resilience through integration
Opening the forum, Mr. Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the world was confronting unprecedented pressure on the rules-based trading order. In that environment, he argued, the CPTPP and the EU represent two of the world’s most robust high-standard trading frameworks, making the case for bringing them closer together “both strategically urgent and practically achievable.”
H.E. Jim Nickel, Ambassador of Canada to Vietnam, placed those developments in the context of Canada’s broader trade strategy. “Businesses are navigating an increasingly uncertain international environment,” he said, pointing to geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, economic security concerns, and rising protectionism. For a trading nation such as Canada, he argued, open markets, transparent rules, and reliable partners are no longer simply economic preferences but strategic necessities.
That perspective has helped deepen Canada’s relationship with Vietnam, which has become one of Canada’s most important trading partners in Southeast Asia. Bilateral merchandise trade surpassed C$20 billion ($14.34 billion) in 2025, while Canadian investment continues to expand as companies look to diversify their presence across the Indo-Pacific.
Vietnam, meanwhile, sees resilience through a similar lens. “The issues before us today are no longer issues that governments must address alone,” said Mr. Ngo Chung Khanh, Deputy Director of the Multilateral Trade Policy Department at the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Vietnam’s Senior CPTPP Official.
He argued that economic resilience, supply chain security, digital transformation, and sustainable growth all require much closer partnerships between governments and businesses. Importantly, he cautioned against equating economic security with greater protectionism. “For Vietnam, economic resilience does not mean economic isolation,” he explained. “It means diversification. It means building trusted and reliable partnerships. It means strengthening the capacity of enterprises to adapt to disruption.”
He warned that pursuing economic security primarily through new trade barriers, fragmented regulations, and inward-looking policies could ultimately produce the opposite effect - higher costs, weaker investment, slower innovation, and greater uncertainty for businesses.
Instead, both Canadian and Vietnamese officials portrayed the CPTPP as more than a conventional free trade agreement. Beyond reducing tariffs, they described it as a platform that provides businesses with predictability across investment, services, digital trade, intellectual property, government procurement, and regulatory cooperation.
As Vietnam chairs the CPTPP in 2026, officials said the challenge is no longer simply administering an existing agreement, but ensuring it continues to evolve alongside the realities facing businesses, from resilient supply chains and digital commerce to regulatory compatibility and emerging technologies.
Common trade architecture
If the case for closer CPTPP-EU cooperation is becoming increasingly compelling, the next challenge is turning that vision into practical outcomes. Rather than negotiating another free trade agreement or pursuing broader market access, participants argued that the priority is to make two of the world’s largest rules-based trading frameworks work better together through greater regulatory compatibility, interoperability, and practical cooperation.
The concept has gained momentum remarkably quickly. What began as a Track 1.5 dialogue among academics, policymakers, and businesses only a year ago has since evolved into an official CPTPP-EU Trade and Investment Dialogue, with ministers identifying digital trade, supply chain resilience, and the global trade environment as initial areas for cooperation.
“The question is not whether there should be greater engagement between CPTPP members and the EU,” said Ms. Mary-Catherine Spiers, Director General of the Trade Negotiations Bureau at Global Affairs Canada and Canada’s Senior CPTPP Official. “The question is how can we structure that engagement most effectively.”
For many speakers, the objective is best understood as improving interoperability rather than harmonization. Mr. Dan Ciuriak, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, argued that globalization has always been driven more by production than by trade itself. The WTO, he said, effectively provided the “operating system” that allowed globally-distributed manufacturing networks to function, while later generations of regional trade agreements continued to update that system after multilateral negotiations stalled.
Today, however, those operating systems have evolved separately. “The EU has developed one regulatory operating system. The CPTPP has developed another,” he said, comparing them to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. “Both perform similar functions, but they are not fully interoperable.”
Rather than replacing either framework, Mr. Ciuriak argued, cooperation should focus on gradually incorporating best practices from both systems, modernizing the rules that underpin international commerce while preserving the foundations that already work.
That approach also reflects the broader objective identified by Dr. Elvire Fabry, Director of Trade and Economic Security at the Jacques Delors Institute. She warned that the current challenge extends beyond rising geopolitical competition to an accelerating erosion of the multilateral trading system itself. The share of global trade conducted under the WTO’s Most-Favored Nation principle has fallen sharply in recent years, while economic coercion and protectionist measures have become increasingly common. The answer, she argued, is not to build a coalition against either the US or China. “The objective is to build a positive agenda,” Dr. Fabry said. “One that supports open trade, prevents further erosion of the current system, and begins rebuilding a stable framework of international trade rules for the future.”
She described the CPTPP-EU initiative as an “insurance policy” for the rules-based trading system, one that should prioritize practical, incremental progress over ambitious institutional redesign.
That pragmatic approach was echoed by the EU itself. Mr. Rafael de Bustamante Tello, Deputy Head of Mission at the EU Delegation to Vietnam, outlined a series of concrete outcomes the two sides hope to announce at the CPTPP ministerial meeting in Hanoi later this year.
Among them are the creation of a joint crisis response network for future supply chain disruptions, a shared reference paper on logistics and supply chain services, common guidance on trade-related environmental measures, and a scoping paper for a future CPTPP-EU digital trade agreement. Together, those initiatives would begin translating political dialogue into operational cooperation.
Digital trade emerged as one of the clearest priorities for closer CPTPP-EU cooperation. For Vietnam, that agenda also aligns closely with the country’s domestic economic priorities. Dr. Dao Ngoc Tien, Vice Principal of the Foreign Trade University, noted that Vietnam aims for the digital economy to account for around 30 per cent of GDP, making greater regulatory compatibility in e-commerce an important opportunity for the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises. For export-oriented industries such as textiles and garments, greater compatibility between the two frameworks could enable components to move more efficiently between Europe and CPTPP economies before reaching global markets.
Ultimately, the success of closer CPTPP-EU cooperation will be measured less by the number of new agreements than by whether businesses find it easier to trade, invest, and build supply chains across both frameworks. As governments seek to balance economic openness with economic security, the goal is not simply to preserve globalization as it once existed, but to build a more resilient trading system based on trusted partnerships, compatible rules, and deeper regulatory cooperation.
Source: Linh Tong
Photo: Canadian embassy in Hanoi
