TOKYO (AP) – Members of a Pacific Rim trade initiative rejected by U.S. President Donald Trump are to hold working-level talks Wednesday in the Japanese mountain resort town of Hakone, west of Tokyo.
The three-day meeting among envoys from the 11 remaining members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership follows a breakthrough last week on a Japan-European Union trade deal seen as a repudiation of the U.S. moves to pull back from such arrangements.
Last week, Japan named a new chief negotiator for TPP talks, Kazuyoshi Umemoto, a former ambassador to Italy.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact soon after taking office, saying his “America First” policy favors one-on-one agreements with other nations rather than multinational pacts like the TPP.
Other TPP members hope to make progress on an alternative that does not include the U.S. before an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam in November.