A sensible decision if Trump is serious about standing up to China. Obama designed TTP as an economic defence against a rising China. The cent seems to finally have dropped with Trump, against a background of his failure to deliver a bilateral deal with countries like Japan and growing anger from the agricultural community that they have both been denied major new markets and that they will be in the firing line for reciprocal tariffs from China.
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Donald Trump has built a reputation over his first 15 months in office as an impetuous leader prone to destabilising policy U-turns. But even for him, his move this week to order top economic advisers to re-examine the case for joining the vast Trans-Pacific Partnership is particularly brazen...
If it results in the US rejoining the TPP with Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim economies, Thursday’s move to order Larry Kudlow, the new head of his National Economic Council, and US trade representative Robert Lighthizer to study the case for doing so will have launched the biggest economic policy shift of Mr Trump’s presidency...
Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University trade expert, said any negotiations to rejoin the TPP would probably drag well into next year. As a result they were unlikely to give Mr Trump any quick political victory in farm states. But as a strategic response to China the TPP remained the best option by far, she said.
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https://www.ft.com/content/bc65dd72-...0-52972418fec4