Trump Considers Reversing Rejection of Trans-Pacific Partnership
“The best thing the United States can do to push back against Chinese cheating now is to lead the other eleven Pacific nations that believe in free trade and the rule of law.”
One of Trump’s first presidential acts was killing Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
Thursday, the White House released the following statement indicating Trump may be reconsidering TPP.
Fresh #TPP statement from the @WhiteHouse. pic.twitter.com/mgW2mcX3ga
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 12, 2018
The Washington Times elaborates:
President Trump directed his top economic and trade officials Thursday to look into reviving the Obama administration’s multi-nation free trade deal with Pacific rim nations, a deal that Mr. Trump withdrew from last year.
The president’s decision came in a White House meeting with lawmakers from farm states worried about the impact of potential tariffs by China against agricultural products.
Mr. Trump “deputized” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to investigate the U.S. getting back into the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-nation agreement including Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, Australia and others.
“That would certainly be good news throughout farm country,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The administration has been floating a multi-billion-dollar proposal to provide temporary relief to farmers who would be hurt by Chinese tariffs. But lawmakers emerging from the White House meeting said they are more interested in opening new markets for trade.
Republican lawmakers are encouraging Trump to reconsider TPP.
“The best thing the United States can do to push back against Chinese cheating now is to lead the other eleven Pacific nations that believe in free trade and the rule of law. It is good news that today the President directed Larry Kudlow and Ambassador Lighthizer to negotiate U.S. entry into TPP,” said. Sen. Sasse.
Japan is also encouraging Trump to reconsider:
Yesterday, before Trump directed his advisers to take a fresh look at TPP, a top Japanese official told Axios: "We would welcome the U.S. anytime back to TPP." https://t.co/5Dtqeg0tlD
— Erica Pandey (@erica_pandey) April 12, 2018
Coincidentally (or not), Japanese Prime Minister Abe will join Trump in Mar-a-lago next week.
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Comments
That is not what I have gathered from the various things that I have read. It is my understanding that the USA would be best served in a push against China by gathering up smaller nations in the region that have no chance of standing up against China alone.
This does not involve some foreign governing Trade Body subverting the autonomy of the USA but instead it involves the USA working on trade deals with various countries.
TPP is dead. Look for new trade deals in the near future.
Oh Jesus
I trust Trump to make a better deal for America. Anything obama did can be easily improved.
Well. This I have mixed feelings about this. TPP was a terrible deal. But Kudlow is not as easily fooled as Obama and his people. So I’ll cross my fingers and wait and see.
Oh, Obama wasn’t fooled. It was all deliberate.
He made it quite clear that he believed that in its relations with other countries, the US should be knocked down a few pegs. He’d cut deals, for sure … but he had no intention that they be “good” deals for the US. And they weren’t. So in that sense, he was a success.
He was our first genuinely anti-American President. Just what he wanted to be.
TPP is a great idea. It was a terrible deal that was being negotiated, and it needed to be trashed. But trade in general is hugely beneficial – as long as it is fair and equitable. TPP-v1 was neither. Perhaps TPP-v2 will be.
Oh, hogwash. The White House statement says nothing at all about “reviving” TPP.
The Washington Times elaborates:
President Trump directed his top economic and trade officials Thursday to look into reviving the Obama administration’s multi-nation free trade deal with Pacific rim nations, a deal that Mr. Trump withdrew from last year.
The “elaboration” is pure fiction. Read the damn White House release. It mentions nothing remotely like “reviving” Obama’s wretched plan.
Very early in the last election campaign, the game of dumping on Trump for what he didn’t say was the first hint I had that they—the usual stick-in-the-mud political and “news” types who have been abusing us for years—had no idea how to handle him. And they still don’t. When they have to manufacture things to be incensed about, that’s the first clue that maybe their opponent isn’t the villain they pretend.
That’s it. I have had it with Insurrection. Too many times, you people twist things to try and make President Trump look bad. Goodbye and good Riddance to Insurrection!!!
President Trump is NOT considering TPP. You are no better than the MSM!
Don’t be silly.
Trust in Trump.
He hasn’t let us down yet.
Now that that rat Paul Boehner is hitting the road, it’s time to revisit REPEALING OBAMACARE.
Paul Boner…. LOL 🙂
The concept of a TPP is wonderful. The most fundamental principle of the political movement we now call “conservative” is free trade, the more of it the better. Unilateral if we can’t get it any other way, but if we can get others to free their trade as well then we should do so.
The problem with TPP was not in the concept but in the implementation. As I understand it, very far from freeing trade among the Pacrim countries it subjected all its members’ economies to massive regulation. Rather than reducing regulations to the lowest common denominator it sought to increase them to the highest common denominator. Instead of reducing the burden on our producers to match those in other countries, it sought to impose the same burden on them — and give the other countries the same power to impose their worst and most burdensome regulations on us.
If my understanding is accurate then Trump was correct to ditch it, but would also be correct to reboot it and do it right this time.
The most fundamental principle of the political movement we now call “conservative” is free trade
A rather eccentric postulate.
In no respect, economic or otherwise, is conservatism a suicide pact or death cult. “Free trade” is a
very expensive luxurycrippling liability unless ALL parties are playing by exactly the same rules. If they are, well, then, it’s great; obviously equitable and 100% efficient … but in practice they never are. Lacking that condition, worship of the mantra of “free trade” is mere pig-headedness; and pig-headedness is not a conservative virtue, even if Liberals think it is.You are profoundly ignorant, both of economics and of history. The political movement originally called liberal and now known as conservative started with the Anti Corn Law League, whose sole issue was free trade.
It’s funny that you should bring up suicide pacts, because that is precisely what you support. You claim that if other countries screw their consumers in order to subsidize the special interests of protected producers then we should do the same. i.e. if all our friends were jumping off a cliff then we should too.
Free trade is always the right thing and the thing that’s in the general interest, which is that of consumers. It’s good even if it’s unilateral — even if we were the only country in the world practicing it. Protectionism survives only because industries seeking protection, being concentrated, have loud voices, while those harmed by it, i.e. everyone, being diffuse, have no voice.
No, tom. There’s only one economic model consistent with liberty and individual property rights.
It’s that one that eschews BIG GOVERNMENT dicking with your right to use your property and acquire property according to YOUR choices, and not the diktats of some “bright”.
Plus, it just works. Every time it’s allowed to work, it expands the wealth of each trading participant. And it’s important that nations don’t trade. People and their organizations trade.
Free trade has always sounded good to a lot of people. But, the great free trade experiment, NAFTA, has ended up hosing the economy of the US.
People tend to take a very narrow view of the results of free trade. It is usually limited to cheaper prices for consumers. However, it always fails to address reduced manufacturing and therefor buying power of these “consumers”. It also fails to address the increase in the cost of domestically produced expendables such a food, fuel and electricity. The only people who actually make money in free trade are foreign manufacturers, domestic importers and global financiers.
Right after NAFTA was ratified, economists were predicting that there would be significant decline in domestic manufacturing and that a major portion of the workforce would have to be reeducated to handle “service” jobs. The result was record long term unemployment and a record reduction in the number of people in the workforce. This was coupled to record government spending, mostly in welfare programs.
Free trade, among unequal partners is nothing more than a means to redistribute wealth. It is great for the have nots, but not so good for the haves.
“Right after NAFTA was ratified, economists were predicting that there would be significant decline in domestic manufacturing and that a major portion of the workforce would have to be reeducated…”
More of your completely FALSE bullshit.
Name the economists. All of them.
Where do you get this Malthusian crap?
Name “the economists”.
You’re just a lying POS.
“Right after NAFTA was ratified, economists were predicting that there would be significant decline in domestic manufacturing and that a major portion of the workforce would have to be reeducated…”
After a day of looking under every rock you could find, you came up with three or four “economists” who predicted nothing of the kind on passage of NAFTA, and wrote critical pieces as recently as this year.
You COULD have found a few, but they were “labor economists” who are AFL-CIO types.
You poor moron.
“The result was record long term unemployment and a record reduction in the number of people in the workforce. This was coupled to record government spending, mostly in welfare programs.”
This is both ANTI-historic and flat-footed LIE.
So, prove that I am lying. Or, at least present SOME information to counter what I posted. Otherwise all you are is a noisy little frog in a BIG pond. You are becoming pathetic, now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
It’s Wiki, so follow ALL the links, liar.
NAFTA has been a net gain to the U.S. and its wage earners. The history is right there.
I doubt that Trump will revive the TPP. The whole purpose of scrapping it is that it limits the control which the US has over its own economy. Two-party trade deals can be easily worked out between the US and other nations. If other nations want to enter into their own TPP, that is their prerogative.
But wait! It is now the next day and Trump is changing his mind! It is almost not worth reporting on his comments because they are usually different within two days.
Tell us where you read his mind the day before.
Here is an Article from the Trumpet, from 2006 [12 years after NAFTA was signed into effect]. It lays out exactly what happens when you reduce manufacturing and stimulate a growing negative balance of trade. Read the whole thing.
Here is the link. Sorry about that. Mac
https://www.thetrumpet.com/2061-the-death-of-american-manufacturing
Wow. A REAL nutter with NO economics chops.
EVERY Western nation on earth has seen a loss of jobs in manufacturing, and yet our manufacturing output is at a record high. Why? Capitalism.
We make what we make best. That’s as it should be, unless you, like Gandhi, believe in the crazy notion of “the spinning wheel” that kept India in poverty for generations.
So, here is another one. This time from the Economic Policy Institute. The author is an economist.
https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/
Here is one from Canada.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/lessons_from_nafta.pdf
And, finally, a report on US farm exports under free trade agreements.
https://www.citizen.org/our-work/globalization-and-trade/let-them-eat-imports-food-under-nafta-and-wto
One final thing. India experienced historic economic growth in the 1990s, largely due to outsourcing from wealthier nations, such as the US. It had a positive cash flow as foreign companies shifted jobs from their countries to the vastly cheaper labor market of India. As i pointed out above, “free trade” benefits the economy of the have nots and depresses the economy of the haves. This is not rocket science. It benefits a globalist economy at the expense of the richest national economies.
Three.
One of them from a grindingly LEFTIST group, Public Citizen.
NOT. IMPRESSED.
India began to turn around when it threw off socialism and embraced market economics. You moron.
It’s instructive to compare the almost feudal Japan when it opened to the West and embraced market economics (with a Japanese twist), and how quickly it because a huge success with India, which for generations groaned under the socialist crap that Gandhi left them.
Finally, while I KNOW you are an obdurate economics moron, I figure you or some reader here can at least read a graph.
“The result was record long term unemployment and a record reduction in the number of people in the workforce. This was coupled to record government spending, mostly in welfare programs.”
No, lying nutter.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=E8vVQLSB&id=295649A0CD4E0E61C43DA5F78C15D66EA86A7E2E&thid=OIP.E8vVQLSBZXh2KWh8nDz7QQHaEh&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2feconotb.files.wordpress.com%2f2012%2f09%2fscreenshot002.jpg&exph=385&expw=630&q=US+unemployment+1994+to+present&simid=608013693190472362&selectedIndex=1&ajaxhist=0
Oh, and what’t cute about the photo the religious nutter heads his piece with….??? Lines of robots. THAT’S why we manufacture so much with so little manpower. We are efficient.
Same reason there is a tiny fraction of us still growing food and fiber, compared to only decades ago.
Poor idiot.