The Pacific Alliance met with its incoming “associate members” for the first round of formal free trade negotiations last week in the Colombian city of Cali. The talks aim to confirm Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore’s status of “associate members” to the Latin American trading coalition, in line with a process announced earlier this year. “We share a goal of greater regional economic integration and freer, more progressive trade that can help create more middle-class jobs and opportunities. This new step represents a strategic opportunity for Canada to advance its ambitious progressive and diversified trade agenda with important and like-minded emerging markets,” said Canada’s minister of international trade François-Philippe Champagne in the run-up to the meeting. The talks follow on an invitation extended this summer by the Pacific Alliance to four observer nations – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore – to become associate members. The “associate member” status is designed to allow for the Pacific Alliance coalition to negotiate trade deals as a bloc with other interested countries. (See Bridges Weekly, 6 July 2017 ) “With these agreements, the Pacific Alliance is closer to consolidating itself as a platform for economic and commercial integration and projection to the...