With Donald Trump's announcement that he intends to withdraw the US from the world's largest trade deal, experts are divided over whether it can survive at all.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a 12-country free trade agreement that includes Australia.
While Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has said a TPP without the US is meaningless, the question is whether the remaining countries could keep the agreement alive.
Tim Harcourt, an economist with the University of NSW's business school and former chief economist of the Australian Trade Commission, said there was an appetite among some members to keep the TPP.
"It could [survive] if all 11 signed up, and in some ways it would get rid of some of the nasties that are typically not meant to be in free trade agreements, so it may actually be a better agreement," he said.
"Small, open economies like Vietnam, or Peru, Chile — those types of economies do very well out of these free trade agreements.
"It's probably Japan and the US who are the least keen of all the economies."
Mr Harcourt said even without the US, the remaining countries could still clinch a deal.
"They've got to get it all though their own parliaments and they'd all have to agree to it without the US," he said.
"So I imagine for a country like Vietnam that was given quite good concessions in American textiles, it won't be as attractive for them, but it's quite possible."
According to Mr Harcourt, a US withdrawal could backfire.
"It might be possible that China sets up something equivalent to the TPP with China pretty much at the helm, and that would not be a good outcome for the US."
Japan and US central to agreement
But some experts argue a TPP without the US is impractical because the agreement was centred on the US and Japan.
"As for aiming to bring it into effect without the United States, at the 12-nation meeting there was no such discussion," Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
"The TPP is meaningless without the United States.
"It is for the same reason that the re-negotiation is impossible, this would disturb the fundamental balance of benefits."
Alan Oxley, chair of the APEC study centre at RMIT University, said Japan had long been uncomfortable without a free trade agreement with the US.
"They're two of the biggest traders in the world," Mr Oxley said.
"Abe pioneered Japanese engagement in this.
"That's really the most important thing about this agreement because the standards that will be set in managing trade between Japan and the US, two very advanced economies, will be the standards which will then be the bases for all parties in the TPP.
"Ultimately, the long-term hope was that it would expand to cover all APEC economies, including China, in the long run."
But Mr Harcourt said for Japan, there was more at stake in the TPP than just trade.
"The reason for the TPP from a Japanese point of view was that they wanted to show China that they had economic leadership of the Pacific," he said.
"For Japan, it wasn't so much the economic benefits of the TPP, although they would have taken them.
"I think Japan was more interested in showing China that Japan and the US are economic leaders of the Asia-Pacific."
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