Last week Costa Rica officially submitted its petition to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), arguably the broadest and most ambitious regional trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific. Costa Rica’s application highlights the growing interest of Latin American governments to use the CPTPP as a mechanism to strengthen their linkages with the Asia-Pacific—a strategy that would reduce their reliance on a single trading partner and diversify/grow their exports and sources of investment. The CPTPP is the first major trans-Pacific agreement where most of its members to the east of the Pacific are Latin American—Chile, Mexico and Peru. Over the past year alone, Costa Rica and Ecuador have formally applied to become members and Uruguay has stated its intentions to join the agreement. Despite renewed enthusiasm in Latin America towards the CPTPP, the region’s engagement with the agreement could be short-lived. Volatile election cycles and growing political unrest and dissatisfaction across the region are likely to shift the region’s commitment towards, and ability to negotiate and ratify, an agreement like the CPTPP.