SYDNEY (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as promised, is prompting other member countries to seek ways to salvage the trade pact. Trump says he favors one-on-one agreements with other nations rather than multinational pacts like the TPP, which would have included markets comprising 40 percent of world GDP and was eventually meant to be the foundation for a wider pan-Pacific trading bloc. Advocates of the TPP said it would set a "gold standard" for modern trade rules, with stringent requirements for intellectual property, labor and environmental protections. There are many possibilities that these 11 countries can still proceed with, the Bernama news agency quoted him as saying. In its current form, the TPP can only take effect after it is ratified by six countries that account for 85 percent of its members' combined gross domestic product. Whatever the deal's fate, the region shows no sign of retreating from the market-opening trend that helped transform its many developing nations into a relatively stable zone of affluent, middle-income economies. Le Dang Doanh, a senior Vietnamese economist and former government economic adviser, said the U.S.