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Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership (nytimes.com)
According to The New York Times, "President Trump told a gathering of farm state lawmakers and governors on Thursday morning that he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the multicountry trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source)." The TPP was a contentious issue during the 2016 presidential election as both Democrats and Republicans attacked it. After signaling during the election that he would pull out of the trade deal "on day one" of his presidency, Trump followed through with his plans. From the report: Rejoining the 11-country pact could be a significant change in fortune for many American industries that stood to benefit from the trade agreement's favorable terms and Republican lawmakers who supported the pact. The deal, which was negotiated by the Obama administration, was largely viewed as a tool to prod China into making the type of economic reforms that the United States and others have long wanted. Both Democrats and Republicans attacked the deal during the president campaign, but many business leaders were disappointed when Mr. Trump withdrew from the agreement, arguing that the United States would end up with less favorable terms attempting to broker an array of individual trade pacts and that scrapping the deal would empower China.
Mr. Trump's decision to reconsider the deal comes as the White House tries to find ways to protect the agriculture sector, which could be badly damaged by the president's trade approach. The risk of an escalating trade war with China has panicked American farmers and ranchers, who send many of their products abroad. China has responded to Mr. Trump's threat of tariffs on as much as $150 billion worth of Chinese goods by placing its own tariffs on American pork, and threatening taxes on soybeans, sorghum, corn and beef. Many American agriculturalists maintain that the easiest way to help them is to avoid a trade war with China in the first place. And many economists say the best way to combat a rising China and pressure it to open its market is through multilateral trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which create favorable trading terms for participants.
Mr. Trump's decision to reconsider the deal comes as the White House tries to find ways to protect the agriculture sector, which could be badly damaged by the president's trade approach. The risk of an escalating trade war with China has panicked American farmers and ranchers, who send many of their products abroad. China has responded to Mr. Trump's threat of tariffs on as much as $150 billion worth of Chinese goods by placing its own tariffs on American pork, and threatening taxes on soybeans, sorghum, corn and beef. Many American agriculturalists maintain that the easiest way to help them is to avoid a trade war with China in the first place. And many economists say the best way to combat a rising China and pressure it to open its market is through multilateral trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which create favorable trading terms for participants.
The big orange shit gibbon made his choice, and now he can live with it. That idiot thinks the entire world revolves entirely around him.
This is why I don't worry about President Trump if the democrats recover the house (and in in the unlikely event they recover the senate too).
He will immediately throw the republican party under the bus to join the winning side.
He has no principles except, "Make money for Trump", "Avoid russia revealing whatever it is they have on Trump", and "Have affairs with women who look like Ivanka as long as I can get it up."
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The entire purpose of TPP was to create a countervailing economic force against China's influence in Asia and the world economy. That was obvious to anyone who read even a few pages about TPP, but of course that's too much to ask of someone who is unwilling to read even a single page of non-bulleted text:
"Trump said he likes his briefings short, ideally one-page if it's in writing. "I like bullets or I like as little as possible. I don't need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page. That I can tell you."
...how he thinks the other 11 countries, who went ahead without the US and have completed a deal of their own, are going to suddenly reopen negotiations just because he wants them to.
You can never predict, from week to week, what his position on something will be. So before we all overreact - either in favor, or against - let's see if this actually is a sign his position is changing, or just another off-the-cuff remark his assistants will be walking back in the next few days.
#DeleteChrome
Trump already knows that TPP is a sellout to our own national interest
Trump used to criticize TPP as such
And now Trump wants to sign on to TPP?
Looks like Trump is preparing to sellout our own national interest, just like the D.C. Swamp
Pretending Democrats have anything to do with anything even remotely left wing is the real crazy here.
I actually read, not the full TPP treaty, but the executive summaries for each section of the treaty, which was still a lot of reading but possible for a person to do in his spare time over a couple of weeks.
The treaty was a mixed bag, but which parts you consider good or bad depended on where you stood on things like environmental and labor protections, vs. things like stricter intellectual property rules. Take out the stricter IP rules and the treaty looks a lot better to a lot of people.
Now one thing that's interesting if you look at who was in on the TPP, China isn't included. That's because the whole point of the TPP was to counter the growing influence of China. That's definitely a good thing for the US.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
To be fair, all the other TPP countries heaved a huge sigh of relief when Mr. Trump pulled the US out of the deal, as all the bits that were impossible to sell back home came from the US.
From what I understand mostly around particularly harsh copyright nonsense. It's hard to know though, because of the secrecy surrounding the whole deal, as if the people involved were ashamed of it or something.
Of course he might be doing it to impress certain people, but that means that impressing those people is more important to him than that money.
Which is my point... he clearly cares about other things than just making money for himself, even if the other things he cares about are no less self-serving.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The thing is, from the point of view of some countries (mostly European)...
1. They need environmental standards. No more maxing out pollution to be competitive.
2. Labor standards. No more practical slaves to be more competitive.
...that's exactly how the US looks to us.
(And you could add "health-safety" as an laternative sub-point to number 1.
"No more mixing hazardous substance to keep competitive prices".
From the US perspective : see all the shit that can be mixed into Chinese plastics
From the EU perspective : see US attempting to reverse some bans against tobacco products).
And that's where your number 3 kicks in :
3. Investor-state dispute. People (especially hard-liberals) see companies-able-to-sue-governments and turn on their "burrrr corporations baddd!" brain. But this is exactly what would've been needed in all the cases where China stole US company IP. Or required joint-ventures. Or subsidized and/or spied for their own domestic companies.
To the US, this looks like an useful tool to sue whole countries like China that don't give a fuck about pollution/health safety/legal quasi-slavery.
(yeah, and also the bits about patents).
To the EU, this looks like an open door for corporations to sue European countries which have much higher standards regarding pollution/health safety/legal quasi-slavery. (Again, see precedent of US companies acting against tobacco bans).
And would also give a way to US companies to complain about controversial IP laws (like software patent. US companies having a way to sue country on IP grounds would open a way to bring more (the non hardware parts) of the H265/HEVC patent madness to Europe).
1. People who just think globalization is bad because reasons.
Above are a few example of the reasons.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]