President Lee Jae Myung instructed the government Tuesday to start over discussions on whether South Korea should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) amid opposition from farmers and fishermen. Lee gave the order during the closed-door portion of a Cabinet meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, referring to the major Indo-Pacific trade agreement comprising 12 countries, including Japan, Mexico, Australia, Canada and Vietnam. Together, the member countries accounted for about 15.2 percent of global trade in 2019. "President Lee said there are opinions that the CPTPP's strategic value is important at a time of profound change in the international trade order, as well as opinions that the farming and fishing industries have great concerns," presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a written briefing. "He stressed that policies should be pursued by calculating the national interest based on trust and shared understanding among farmers and fishermen, and ordered starting over conversations from scratch without rushing toward a fixed conclusion," sh