LONDON — Britain is resetting its Indo-Pacific strategy to deepen trade and security ties across Asia, Dec. 27, 2025.
The reset leans on three pillars of the Indo-Pacific strategy: membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, implementation of a new UK-India free trade pact and stepped-up work under AUKUS, the security partnership with Australia and the United States.
Indo-Pacific strategy: a trade-and-security package
In a Dec. 1 keynote at King’s College London, Indo-Pacific Minister Seema Malhotra said “partnerships are the bedrock for security and prosperity” and argued “the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific security contexts are indivisible.” Her message: economic resilience and deterrence now move together — and the government wants trade tools and defense partnerships to reinforce each other.
CPTPP: access, rules of origin and influence
The trade plank is already in force. Britain joined CPTPP on Dec. 15, 2024, becoming the bloc’s 12th member as it pushes post-Brexit commerce beyond Europe. Reuters said the deal immediately applied with eight members — including Japan, Singapore and Vietnam — with other partners joining as they ratified.
For ministers, CPTPP is now the economic backbone of the Indo-Pacific strategy. Supporters also point to “rules of origin” provisions that can help goods assembled across multiple CPTPP economies qualify for preferential treatment — a practical benefit for industries built on cross-border inputs. Critics, however, note Britain already had bilateral trade deals with most members and that the overall growth dividend is expected to be modest.
India FTA: tariff cuts and a bet on growth
The India agreement is the largest single bilateral prize inside the Indo-Pacific strategy. Reuters’ May 6 summary said India will cut tariffs on 90% of British products, including whisky, cars and food, and that 99% of Indian exports to the UK will face zero duties. Britain estimates the pact will raise long-run trade by 25.5 billion pounds a year from 2040.
Even with the deal agreed, the hard work is in uptake — persuading small and mid-sized exporters to navigate India’s market, and proving that the Indo-Pacific strategy’s commercial upside reaches beyond London’s biggest firms.
AUKUS: pace, submarines and industrial capacity
On security, Britain is pushing to turn AUKUS from a headline into hardware, and AUKUS remains the security anchor of the Indo-Pacific strategy. A trilateral statement after defense ministers met at the Pentagon said the partners intend to move “full steam ahead” and pledged to “inject pace and focus on delivery” under both Pillar I submarine cooperation and Pillar II advanced capabilities.
In July, Reuters reported Australia and Britain signed a 50-year “Geelong Treaty” to underpin cooperation on the SSN-AUKUS submarine program, signaling a push to lock in long-term industrial and legal arrangements.
How Britain got here
This moment is a continuation, not a sudden pivot. The government’s 2021 Integrated Review set out a “tilt” toward the region. AUKUS was announced later that year by leaders including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden. Trade talks with India were formally launched in early 2022, and Britain signed the CPTPP accession protocol in 2023.
The open question for the Indo-Pacific strategy is execution: implementing trade terms, building the workforce and shipyard capacity that AUKUS demands and persuading businesses that the Indo-Pacific strategy is more than rhetoric.
