Peru urges new Pacific trade deal after Trump snub

Peru on Tuesday called for China and other Pacific countries to forge an alternative free trade agreement after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the key TPP accord.

Trump on Monday signed a memo on withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), effectively ending what was meant to be a major trade pact championed by his predecessor Barack Obama.

The TPP was to have included Mexico, the United States and 10 other countries spanning the Pacific including Peru, but it excluded China.

"We should work with China, the countries of Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand," Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on television on Tuesday.

"We should make an APEC-Pacific group reaching as far as India, that way we will include everyone. We are going to take the best parts of the TPP and get rid of the less good parts."