Trump: I'll Ditch TPP Trade Deal on Day One of My Presidency (arstechnica.com)

US President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that the U.S. will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a trade deal involving 12 Pacific Rim nations -- "on day one" of his presidency. From a report on ArsTechnica: Trump, in a YouTube video outlining plans for his first 100 days in office, said: "I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country." He added: "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores." An emphasis on bilateral trade deals may call into question both the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), involving dozens of nations, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Although the latter is between the US and the European Union, the complex political structure of the EU means that effectively 28 nations are involved and can influence the outcome of the deal. This was demonstrated by the dramatic intervention of the Walloon regional government in the signing of CETA, the bloc's trade deal with Canada.

Comments

False decisiveness.

[RightSaidFred99]

I would plan for a lot of this sort of thing from him. False shows of decisiveness. A lot of people seem to think that "doing something" is what a leader does, even if that "something" isn't well thought out or planned.

He doesn't know how to fix Obamacare but he'll "do something", lol.

I expect Trump to be worse than his base expects, but better than the melting down, hysterical media and left cries about.

Re:False decisiveness.

[snookiex]

I don't know if this is false decisiveness, but he has to do something, be it a stunt or not. He's already getting a lot of heat from almost half of the country. He needs to consolidate and keep calm his electoral base at least. Politics, just like economy, is more about emotions than technicalities.

Hypocrisy at it's finest

[Anonymous Coward]

*EVERYONE* here was bitching about TPP until Trump decided to do away with it.

Because Trump.

Re:Hypocrisy at it's finest

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I see this (dumping the TPP) as good news.

Re:Hypocrisy at it's finest

[FilmedInNoir]

That would be me. I'm a non-Trump supporter. I'm on the middle to left. TPP was extremely bad. Want to protest human rights violations by LG? TPP was bad.
Want to boycott those lead laced toys from Shanghai? TPP was bad. If you like pirated content, TPP was bad.
The only people that benefited from TPP were IP holders and large corporations like Walmart and Amazon.
But bluegutang is right, I'm doubtful if Trump understands why educated members of the left are against TPP. Unless my conspiracy theory holds true and Trump is secretly a Marxist.

Re: New Trump fan here!

[Anonymous Coward]

What replacement for Obamacare exactly? The one where you pay more and only save by not having medical procedures done?

Congress will ...

[CaptainDork]

... not Trump.

They weren't going to approve it anyway.

It's like Trump declaring that, on day one, he'll adjust the atmospheric composition to be 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.

No principles.

[Anonymous Coward]

For years up to a week ago: TPP is an abomination love child between Hitler and Satan and needs to die.

Now that Trump doesn't want it: This will ruin the nation and will only benefit China. TPP Must Go Forward!

Re:No principles.

[CrankyFool]

I don't know, man. Personally, I absolutely detest Trump and I think that at a social level he's pretty bad for us. Opinions will, of course differ. But I thought the TPP was a terrible deal for the US and that the Democrats pushing it (hello Obama and "I was against it after I was for it" Clinton) were working primarily in the interests of the moneyed elites. Trump's made a bunch of decision since being elected that I don't like (e.g. Bannon, and having his kids in heads-of-state meetings), but him coming out against TPP? Yeah, that's a good one. I appreciate and support that. It's easy, I think, for us to become so partisan that literally everything the other side does is obviously evil. We saw that, I'd argue, with the Republicans and Obama. We can do better than that. I will support and applaud actions that Trump takes that are good, and fight aggressively against the other ones.

Re:I'm confused

[meta-monkey]

Neoconservatives are pro-globalization. Traditional conservatives are anti-globalism, pro-nationalism. Whatever Trump is, he's an economic nationalist, so he gets the support of traditional conservatives, like the Tea Party voters (note this is distinct from how the Tea Party candidates like Rubio got co-opted into the Neocon establishment. The story of the Tea Party is voters worker their asses off to get "their" people into office in 2010 - 2014 only to be met with immediate betrayal, resulting in the seething, frothing anger that enabled Trump).

Hopefully with the election of Trump and the destruction of the Republican and Democrat establishments we can relegate neoconservatism to the ash heap of history, along with the worst of leftist identity politics.

Re:Do you now realize why Trump won?

[MightyMartian]

The Rust Belt had already been in decline for over a decade by the time the WTO agreements were made. And you're forgetting that before WTO was GATT, so it's not like there weren't multilateral trade agreements.

So I'll ask again, what do you propose to replace it with? Do you wish to have American goods disadvantaged on the international markets? And what if the rest of the world decides to enter multilateral agreements, and larger trading partners like the EU and the Asian nations start throwing up trade barriers to US goods?

What's more, all those jobs you reference are going to disappear no matter what. Automation is increasingly going to reduce employment, even in those countries where many such jobs have gone. Once again we see how the "anti-globalist" types are little more than naive luddites.