China and 14 other Asia-Pacific nations seek to sign a trade deal this weekend that will knit their economies closer together—the second pact covering large swaths of the region whose signatories don’t include the U.S.
The U.S. originally intended to be part of the first—a group of Pacific Rim countries called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP—but quit after President Trump took office. The other 11 countries, including Japan, Canada, Mexico and Australia, went ahead without the U.S. and signed a lower-impact version of…
