Trump kills TPP, giving China its first big win

[DonViejo]

By Ishaan Tharoor January 24 at 1:00 AM

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday ending the United States' participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping trade pact negotiated with eleven other nations. It was neither ratified by American lawmakers nor expected to pass a vote in Congress. But Trump chose to kill it anyway with an executive action, underscoring how different he is from his Republican predecessors — and some of the party's current leaders — who embraced free trade and preached the dogma of open markets.

He also handed China its clearest opening yet to tilt the geopolitical balance in Asia in its favor.

Trump's opposition to the TPP is one of his few consistent political positions. Throughout the campaign, he issued loud calls in defense of American workers and against the perils of globalization. The pact became politically toxic for both parties last year, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton turning against the TPP (she had initially supported it) and her leftist challenger Bernie Sanders joining Trump in framing the TPP as the project of secretive elites ready to stiff the American common man.

Trump spent Monday morning with executives of leading American manufacturing companies, discussing plans to give incentives to American corporations to stay at home and tax those that build factories elsewhere and then ship goods back. Whatever comes of these discussions, Trump seems to be sticking to his protectionist promises. Critics, though, argue that the economic and technological realities of our age mean that the bulk of lost American jobs, particularly in manufacturing, are never going to return.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/24/trump-kills-tpp-giving-china-its-first-big-win/?utm_term=.c0d7229f9387

[Kolesar]

1. Obama had an agenda to double US exports in five years.

Trump has a double chin.

[HoneyBadger]

2. Good, that was not how America should win

[TheBlackAdder]

3. China was not going to be in TPP, so they could undercut TPP partner nations.

.


Like with Central and South America and Africa, the US and EU have trade agreements to elevate the UN MDG standards, and China comes in and says, "Hey, deal with us and we don't care about the ecology, financial records, labor, etc... You do what you want and we'll look the other way, saving you millions of dollars each year. Then, instead of businesses giving you sporadic contracts, we'll contract with you for 25-30 years, guaranteed, with price adjustments, etc."

Developing nations are burdened with the paperwork to maintain Millennial Development Goals, that developed countries push onto them. China is running away with almost half of the Western Hemisphere's nations, as the US and EU pushes for unrealistic goals that barely elevate the extreme poor just pennies out of that category and increase the wealth of the upper classes. It looks good on paper though. People go from making extreme poverty of $1.20 a day to $1.30 a day and that lifts them out of extreme poverty category, while their life conditions barely change.

China acts as a collective merchantile state, where they contract for the good of the nation. They've locked down over 1.5 Million square miles of South American and African croplands, for at least 25 years.

The TPP would hamstring partner nations, while China stays out of it and acts as a free agent, dealing directly with and undercutting the TPP-bound countries.

.

[Red Knight]

4. America wins too

The TPP was awful.

It seems like many on the left suddenly like it. Weird.

Either you pass it or you don't.

So if you pass it and China "loses", does the American worker win? What about the ISDS? Is that a win? If a corporation wants to dump toxic sludge due to its manufacturing process but America says you can't do that and the ISDS sues America because it's hurting that corporations profits--is that a "win"?

Are extended pharmaceutical patents a good thing? Is that a "win"?

A good trade deal that doesn't give corporations unlimited power would be a "win".

This wasn't it.

[pampango]

5. Life goes on for the rest: Australia and New Zealand to pursue 'TPP 12 minus one'

Australia has already devised a name for a possible new agreement: TPP 12 Minus One. The country’s trade minister Steve Ciobo said Australia would not abandon the TPP just because it would require “a little bit of elbow grease” to keep it alive.

“I’ve had conversations with Canada, with Mexico, with Japan, with New Zealand, with Singapore, Malaysia,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from New York on Monday. “I know that there’s been conversations that have been had with Chile and with Peru. So there’s quite a number of countries that have an interest in looking to see if we can make a TPP 12 minus one work,” he said.

Meanwhile China, which was not part of the deal, hinted it may look to take advantage of TTP’s collapse saying it was in favour of “open and transparent regional economic arrangements”.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English has said he is hopeful of keeping a free trade deal alive with remaining members of the TPP agreement, while the country’s trade minister Todd McClay told local media he expected TPP ministers would meet in the coming months to navigate a way forward.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38725807