PERU has started talks with China about joining a Beijing-backed trade pact for the Asia Pacific region even as it holds out hopes that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump might renege on his vow to scrap a rival U.S.-led deal, the government said yesterday.

    Trade Minister Eduardo Ferreyros said he hopes Peru will someday be part of both proposed tariff-slashing deals — the Trans Pacific Partnership with the United States and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with China.

    Peru, which signed the TPP along with 11 other countries early this year, told China in September that it is interested in joining the RCEP, which includes India and a dozen more members.

    “The problem is that negotiations are well under way,” Ferreyros told reporters of talks on RCEP with Chinese officials. “The signal we got was ‘let us finish and then we’ll see how to incorporate new members.’”

    If trade-liberalization proponent Peru joined a final RCEP pact, it would be the only country in the Americas in a free trade area spanning India to New Zealand, possibly encouraging other TPP signatories in Latin America to follow suit.

    The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that the RCEP would give China a foothold in fast-growing export markets and allow China to write trade rules unless the TPP were also in force.

    “We’ll have to see how ambitious the pact is,” Ferreyros said of the RCEP. “Even if it’s not as deep as other agreements, we’ll still participate.”

    Trump’s victory last week appeared to jettison years of TPP negotiations during Obama’s administration. (SD-Agencies)