GENEVA (Realist English). Members of the World Trade Organization, including Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, are preparing to unveil a new coalition aimed at defending “trade openness” and strengthening ties among small and medium-sized nations in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruptive trade policies.
The initiative, to be called the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FIT-P), is expected to bring together about 10 countries. According to diplomats involved in the discussions, New Zealand will join Singapore and the UAE as founding members, while other potential participants include Morocco, Rwanda, Malaysia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Norway. A final membership list has not yet been confirmed.
FIT-P is designed as a flexible coalition focused on confidence-building measures and rule-based trade, particularly in digital areas. Among its priorities will be the mutual recognition of digital and paper trade documents, acceptance of e-signatures, and advancing rules on electronic trade. “The idea is to start as a loose coalition to bolster trade openness, but it may evolve into something bigger over time. It is a work in progress,” one official involved in the talks said.
The group is scheduled to launch formally at a virtual meeting in November, followed by an in-person gathering in July 2026.
The move comes as Trump’s administration continues to prioritize bilateral “napkin deals” with the EU, Japan and other major partners, undermining the “most favoured nation” principle and adding volatility to global supply chains. The EU and the 12-member CPTPP bloc have already announced plans to deepen ties in defense of multilateral trade rules.
Cecilia Malmström, former EU trade commissioner and now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said FIT-P reflects the determination of smaller states to uphold stability. “It shows that many countries want to trade within clear rules and transparency. This group could cooperate with EU-CPTPP and together push for plurilateral global rules,” she said.
Officials compared the initiative to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA), founded in 2020 by Chile, New Zealand and Singapore and later joined by South Korea, which established a framework for cross-border digital trade.
Still, some potential members have voiced caution. “There are plenty of other trade groups around — we wouldn’t want to join another just for the sake of it. We want more details on the benefits and mechanisms, otherwise it could just be death by a thousand meetings,” one official remarked.
The trade ministries of New Zealand and Singapore declined to comment on the developing plans.
