Why the UK Just Joined CPTPP
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Today the UK joins the CPTPP, South Korea's president has been impeached and Germany's Chancellor Scholz is set to lose a no-confidence vote. From TLDR News, this is your daily briefing for Monday 16th December 2024.

Today, after three years of negotiations and an in-principle agreement last year, the UK finally joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, becoming the first European country to do so. For context, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, commonly known as the CPTPP, is a massive free trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and now the UK.

The CPTPP was first really conceived by Barack Obama back in 2009 as the economic basis for his so-called Pivot to Asia.

Originally, Obama's plan was to use the CPTPP to create a trade bloc so big that China would eventually be tempted to apply, and then use the subsequent negotiations to pressure the Chinese into agreeing to US-structured regulations relating to stuff like intellectual property and state-owned enterprises, which are covered by the CPTPP.

Trump withdrew from the bloc just three days after taking office because, well, he doesn't generally like free trade deals, but Japan decided to push on with the agreement anyway. Like most trade agreements, the CPTPP facilitates trade between its members by doing two things, harmonizing certain regulations and reducing tariffs. There are basically zero tariffs on trade between CPTPP members, with only a few exceptions for sensitive goods.

On top of that, the CPTPP provides for a single set of rules of origin, which prevent foreign goods from sneaking into the CPTPP. What makes the CPTPP special, however, is its scope.

As well as harmonising SPS regulations and reducing tariffs, the CPTPP also includes chapters on stuff like labour rights, environmental protections and state-owned enterprises, as well as a pretty robust enforcement mechanism. These sorts of things aren't included in most FTAs, especially amongst developing economies. Anyway, the UK applied to join the CPTPP in early 2021.

At the time, the UK government, then led by Boris Johnson, was trying to prove that it could make the most of its new Brexit freedoms, having left the EU a year beforehand. Negotiations finally concluded in March of last year under Rishi Sunak.

At the time, the deal, which is expected to increase UK GDP by less than 0.1%, was dismissed by Starmer as trivial compared to the economic losses incurred by Brexit. But Labour have gone ahead with the deal anyway, presumably because, well, 0.1% is better than nothing.

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On Saturday, South Korea's embattled President Yoon Seok-yool was impeached by the National Assembly over his botched attempt at imposing martial law two weeks ago. It was the National Assembly's second attempt at impeaching Yoon in the space of a week, with the first attempt having failed as an insufficient number of lawmakers from Yoon's own Conservative Party broke rank.

However, with mass protests continuing through the week, lawmakers again convened on Saturday for another attempt at impeachment. And this time it was successful, with 12 of Yoon's own lawmakers joining with the opposition to vote for impeachment, surpassing the necessary two-thirds threshold by just four votes. The result means that Yoon is now suspended from the presidency, while the case goes to the Constitutional Court, which must confirm or overturn the impeachment within six months.

In the meantime, Yoon's prime minister will serve as acting president. To approve impeachment, six justices from the nine-seat court must vote in favour. There are currently three vacant seats, so full impeachment will need a unanimous decision from all six sitting justices. If they do approve the impeachment, Yoon will be officially removed from office and a new presidential election must be held within 60 days of the ruling.

There's a lot more to say about South Korea's dramatic martial law saga, so keep an eye out for a full video that will come out on the TLDR Global channel on Tuesday. Now over to Germany, where the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to lose a confidence vote in the Bundestag today. The vote follows the dissolution of Scholz's traffic-like coalition with his SDP, or Social Democratic Party, the Greens, and the Liberal Free Democratic Party, or the FDP.

The coalition, which was formed in 2021, has since been fraught with conflict and political infighting. The coalition itself completely collapsed early last month, following the dismissal of Finance Minister and leader of the FDP, Christian Lindner. The Chancellor soon after promised to call a confidence vote, which was formally submitted last Wednesday.

Today, at around 1pm local time, Scholz will justify his call in a short address to the Bundestag, and the results will be determined by a roll call vote at about 4pm. Scholz is widely expected to lose the vote.

Yet, it has been reported that a few MPs from the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AFD party, have said that they would tactically vote in support of the Chancellor. By attempting to keep Scholz in power, the AFD's strategy is to try and delay the general election, which are expected to be held in February and will probably be won by Friedrich Merz of the centre-right CDU.

If Scholz does lose the confidence vote, the agreed date for the new elections on February 23rd will be confirmed, kicking off the official start of the campaign for the next German Chancellor and Parliament. Jamaica has tabled a bill in Parliament to remove King Charles III as head of state, abolish the monarchy and transition the country to a republic. For context, Jamaica has been independent since 1962, but before this the Caribbean island was a British colony.

The British monarch was retained as head of state, being represented by a governor-general, but it's still viewed by many people as a legacy of colonialism. Jamaica's Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahou-Forte, who presented the bill last Wednesday, said it was a response to an ongoing call from Jamaicans to change the constitution.

She told the Guardian newspaper, At the end of the day, this is not about political parties. It's about our nation. It's about our people. And it's about closing the full circle of independence for the people of our country.

To become law, the bill has to go through several stages, including scrutiny by joint committee, a vote in parliament and a national referendum. But if it's passed, it'll mean that a Jamaican president will become the ceremonial head of state.

Now obviously all of that is pretty complicated, but hopefully our analysis has made it a little clearer. Making videos like this requires a lot of effort and research to uncover what's really going on, before then summarising it into something that makes sense to everyone. But that's an expensive process. Running TL;DR this year has cost just under £800,000, which when your main product is free YouTube videos is quite a lot of money.

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