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China’s supported trade deal agreement flops, pushed to 2019

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has said his country is the standard bearer of global free trade. [Photo: AFP]

A China-backed bid to complete the world's largest trade deal without the United States, was pushed back to next year after Asia-Pacific trade ministers failed to agree key terms at a Singapore summit.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), covering half the world's population, is billed as an antidote to President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda, which has seen tariffs imposed on almost half of all Chinese imports to the US -- and retaliatory levies by Beijing.

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