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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.
Yes everyone with a brain knew that and also knew it would have had little impact on the US economy but that it's purpose was to bond all those asian nations to the US economy rather than make them client states of China.
But there's a lot of people that just heard free trade and didn't want it because they KNEW free trade was bad bad bad. These people don't care about facts or logical arguments, they just didn't want free trade and Trump promised them he was against free trade.
Now we see someone has apparently explained what the purpose of the TPP actually was and he's apparently decided it was a good idea. Like all things he'll probably waffle a few more times then betray his constituents and take a position identical to Obama just like he has on every other international issue he's dealt with.
Remember the whole "I won't tell the enemy what we're doing in Syria" statement? yea it and all the others he's followed right exactly in the footsteps of what Obama. It would be funny if it wasn't so SAD!
That was obvious to anyone who read even a few pages about TPP
Really? You mean the fucking pages they kept locked away, monitored by armed guards 24/7, and prevented most congress members from actually reading?
Fuck off, shill.
TPP is trash.
You must be talking about Hillary....
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