The inclusion of all the big guns in East Asia namely China, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand has turned RCEP into an indispensable trading bloc, underlining diminution of America's economic influence.
The trade pact brings together 15 countries to form a free trade bloc as formidable as the European Union.
The deal, expected to be signed on the sidelines of a mostly online ASEAN summit in Hanoi, will take years to complete but will progressively lower tariffs across many areas and could become the world’s biggest trade agreement.
The world's largest trade deal, also called RCEP, is pushed back to next year as trade ministers of Asia-Pacific countries fail to agree key terms at a summit, ahead of ASEAN meeting, in Singapore.
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