> What motivated Australia, Japan, and SK to sign on to this? Most likely the fact that the US becoming more isolationist forces traditional allies to enter in

> What motivated Australia, Japan, and SK to sign on to this? Most likely the fact that the US becoming more isolationist forces traditional allies to enter into agreements that they wouldn't have considered previously. In this instance, this is the first trade agreement that has had China, Japan, and South Korea as signatories. Also, despite their posturing China is a HUGE economic power and everyone in the region would prefer to ride that wave instead of be crushed by it. > Do they not fear alienating the US? To a certain extent the US has alienated the rest of the world with it's "America first" Trump policy. This is just the logical progression of countries moving on to fill the economic power gap the US has left in the Pacific. > I suppose once we scuttled the TPP they had no alternatives? Lol. Everyone else went onto sign the CPTTP which went into effect 30 Dec 2018 which was largely identical to the original TTP, excluding the inclusion of the US of course.