A group of 12 countries that signed a major free trade agreement is thinking about changing its name, because even its own members struggle to say it.

The agreement is called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP for short. Members include New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. It started in 2016 as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, but was rebuilt under the new name after Donald Trump pulled the United States out in 2017. Vietnam took over as chair of the group in 2026, and the first big meeting of the year was held in Hanoi on March 12 (RNZ; ASEM Connect Vietnam; MOIT).

Deborah Elms, a trade policy expert at the Heinrich Foundation in Singapore, said the name change was long overdue. "Everyone trips over the acronym," she said. A recent survey of member countries asked for new name suggestions, and most responses were along the lines of "international" or "global trade partnership," Elms said (RNZ).

The name discussion shows how much the agreement has moved beyond the Pacific. Countries like Uruguay and Britain have joined, and more are lining up. Costa Rica is about to join, according to Elms. Eight other countries are interested, and four have started the formal process of signing on. The agreement itself runs to about 600 pages of rules, plus thousands of pages of additional detail for each member. It has not been updated since 2015 (RNZ).

Elms has also been pushing for the group to set up a secretariat — a permanent office with staff to handle the day-to-day running of the agreement. Right now, the group has no such office. Instead, a different member country takes turns chairing things each year.

The broader context here is that the CPTPP was never meant to be permanent. It was put together quickly after the United States walked away from the original TPP. Members kept most of the rules, shelved a few that the US had wanted, and gave it a new name that no one seems to like. Ten years on, the rules have not been updated, the membership has spread far beyond the Pacific, and there is no permanent office running things.

For New Zealand, which has put a lot of diplomatic effort into this agreement, these questions matter in practical ways. A permanent office would give the group a steady presence in places like Geneva, where a lot of global trade policy is shaped. A name change would be mostly cosmetic, but it would show the agreement has grown beyond its Pacific beginnings. And updating the rules would let members fix parts that have fallen behind, especially around digital trade and state-owned businesses.

None of this is guaranteed to happen. The meeting in Vietnam is about setting an agenda, not making final decisions. What people will be watching is whether the name-change idea moves from a survey to an actual proposal, and whether support builds for setting up a permanent office. With Costa Rica about to join and four more countries starting the process, the strain on the group's lightweight setup is only growing.