Trump left our allies at the altar. Now he's mad they're moving on.

[applegrove]

Trump left our allies at the altar. Now he’s mad they’re moving on.

By Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-left-our-allies-at-the-altar-now-hes-mad-theyre-moving-on/2019/04/22/fbccc7e8-653b-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.0d1a31059603

"SNIP.....

President Barack Obama signed the TPP in 2016. But Congress dragged its feet in ratifying it. Among President Trump’s first actions after his inauguration was to pull us out of the deal, with generally incoherentreasons for doing so.

Disappointed that we’d reneged, the remaining 11 TPP countries nonetheless decided to continue without us. Their new deal, sometimes called TPP 2.0, formally went into effect on Dec. 30, 2018. Just over a month later, Japan’s new trade deal with the European Union became effective.

This means that dozens of other countries now benefit from changes we persuaded Japan to make. And our farmers are about to lose out, big time.

Japan’s beef imports were already up 25 percent in the first two months of 2019 compared with a year earlier, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The biggest beneficiaries were Canada and New Zealand. This makes sense: As members of TPP 2.0, they have a huge price advantage. U.S. beef is tariffed at 38.5 percent, and TPP 2.0 countries’ beef is now at 26.6 percent, with further reductions slated for coming years.



......SNIP"

[moondust]

1. And this.

Canada joins new German-France 'alliance' that doesn't include U.S.

Japan also joined.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Trump assumed that his past MO of extortion and threatening

would work well with other nations, assumably eager to do business with the U.S.

Wrong assumptions.

[applegrove]

4. They were showing broken silos full of some grain on the news. I can't remember

If it was tornadoes or flooding that destroyed them and their contents but the farmers had been stockpiling grain because of the trade wars. Hoping for a solution so they could sell their product abroad. Now it is all ruined.

[Demsrule86]

3. I hate the TPP which allows slave countries so not sorry it is gone.

[applegrove]

5. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty in the last 40 years because of trade.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. I took a global economics cource two years ago, and the TPP was not going to have result expected.

.

That lifted out of extreme poverty is complete bullshit.

The majority cited as being lifted went from $1.25 a day to $1.30, which lifted them just out of that range.
The folks who are making the money are the land barons and politicians who skim money off of the transactions and intercept most of the global aid coming to their countries.


TPP will be an abject failure if China is not on board. The US & EU have MDG agreements with Central & South America to boost income, labor conditions, finance, and environmentals. This causes a huge burden on emerging economies. China swoops in and says, hey, instead of 2-3 year contracts which could be canceled by US & EU companies, we trade as a nation state and will lock in for a 30 year contract with 20 year extensions, providing COLA and other incentives. If you trade with us, we won't tell you how to pay your workers, manage your workplace, monitor your finances and care for your environment. Over the past 20 years, China has become the #1 trading partner country with most of them. The US is now second. China now controls a million square miles of their cropland and over a million more in Africa. While the US companies dick around with short contracts, China is locking in the worlds croplands.

If China is not on board, TPP will just hamstring member nations, giving the competitive edge to China.

.

[applegrove]

7. I had heard about China in Africa. That was a worry. Did not know they were in South America.

[Beartracks]

8. So is Trump *trying* to sabotage America??

Cuz he's certainly not "making us great" with stupid policies and priorities like this.

==========