Mexico pitches Latin American free trade deal with Vietnam

Mr Guajardo also asserted that the integration of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada as Associated States to the Pacific Alliance is a very clear message of the will to accelerate integration of Latin America with the Asia Pacific basin.

With the election of US President Donald Trump, the US made the decision to leave the TPP.

Faced with this, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, along with his counterparts Michelle Bachelet of Chile; Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peru, promoted the creation of Associated States within the framework of the Pacific Alliance.

The four countries of New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Singapore have already agreed to join the Pacific Alliance as Associated States within the next couple of months, said Mexico News.

Mexican President Peña Nieto is hoping to use the latter agreement with the four Associated States as leverage in its current renegotiations of the of the Free Trade Agreement of America (NAFTA) with the US, noted Mexico News.

According to the Secretary of Economy, added Mexico News, the Pacific Alliance may be an alternative to the TPP.

Mexico already has pulled trade agreements with seven out of the 11 original members of the TPP.

The additional four countries that could also be integrated as Associated States to the Pacific Alliance are Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Japan.

We must remain proactive in pursuit of free trade, said Mexican President Peña Nieto, according to Mexico News, we cannot afford to sit back and not act post haste to continue to expand our trading area.

Twelve countries that border the Pacific Ocean – the US, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru – signed up to the TPP in February 2016.

The agreement, representing roughly 40% of the world's economic output, would have been the largest free trade agreement in history, but it fell through when President Trump withdrew the US after his inauguration.

The Pacific Alliance is a free trade initiative of Latin American regional integration comprised of the four countries of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, officially established on April 28, 2011.