New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday the United States should return to a regional trade pact it quit in 2017 if it wants to engage economically with the Indo-Pacific region.
Speaking on a visit to Washington, Ardern said that multinational agreement, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), was the "gold standard," but New Zealand would continue to push for greater access to the U.S. market even without it.
"If the United States is looking to engage in our region economically, then that is the place to do it," she said of the CPTPP, which the Biden administration has been reluctant to return to given concerns about the impact on U.S. jobs.