The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multilateral agreement intended to liberalize the Asia-Pacific region economies. The founding members of the TPP, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore first signed the agreement in 2005. Currently, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam are in negotiations to join. Japan announced in March that it would also seek to join negotiations. Following Japan’s announcement, the US is encouraging South Korea to join in negotiations, but the latter declined for the time being. The US is now playing a lead role TPP negotiations.
The goal of the TPP is to reduce trade tariffs between member countries to zero by the year 2015. Its subject matter also extends far beyond traditional trade issues. For example it seeks to set rules on service-sector regulations, investment, intellectual property rights, and agriculture.
Both current members and prospective future members of the TPP are part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). However the TPP is not an APEC project. It does, however, work toward the APEC goal of creating a free trade area in the Asia Pacific region.
Taiwan has shown interest in the TPP. That's a part of the nation's active search for free trade partners. A US official said that Washington will support Taiwan’s entry into the TPP, but he also said Taiwan needs first to move away from protectionism before it joins.