BREAKING NEWS: Trump Says He Might Want to Rejoin TPP
One year after he took the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Donald Trump said he would consider bringing the US back in.
In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said he might make the move if the deal could be restructured and calling the original TPP “horrible.” He did not elaborate as to how and why TPP was so objectionable.
It was an astonishing statement from a man who campaigned for president pledging to remove the US from the trade accord. It’s possible he was reacting to the remaining 11 TPP members committing to remaining together in a trade pact.
Trump also repeated his threat to quit NAFTA, saying in effect, “maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” and harping on US trade deficits with Canada and Mexico.
At least the US is currently engaged in negotiations to revise NAFTA. Are there any ongoing talks to being the US back into TPP? Not that we know of.
Countries committed to trade need some level of policy certainty. The same is true of companies. They often plan investments on a decades-long horizon. Trade deals are not the same as real estate deals. A country that flits in and out of international accords will soon become irrelevant. The center of gravity for world trade will move elsewhere, to China, for instance.
That’s the direction Trump’s policies are moving the United States.
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