The 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) countries – Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam – announced this morning that they have resolved all remaining issues and reached a final agreement on the regional free-trade agreement. If the United States ultimately passes legislation implementing the agreement, TPP will create an integrated regional economy accounting for 40 percent of global GDP. Formal negotiations began in March 2010, and today’s announcement concludes the final negotiations round that began last week in Atlanta.

The agreement is billed as a high-ambition, “21st century agreement,” which contains “World Trade Organization-plus” provisions in key areas and which attempts to a much greater degree to address behind-the-border trade barriers that have eluded the disciplines contained in existing multilateral and bilateral Free Trade Agreements. Although not yet publicly available, the text contains some 30 chapters, annexes to chapters, and bilateral side-letters covering all aspects of trade in goods and services between and among the parties. A summary of the key features of the agreement can be found here. The negotiating teams now must formalize the outcomes of the final days of negotiations and “scrub” the legal text before it is publically released.