During the campaign, Donald Trump had not hesitated to qualify the trans-Pacific Economic partnership (TPP), promoted and signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, as a “killer of jobs”. And this Monday he acted in concordance, when removing the united States from this agreement, which was intended to form the largest free trade area in the world. With that move, the tycoon is risking to leave the field open to China.
“We’ve talked a lot about this for a long time,” said Trump as he signed the executive order before journalists. “What we do is a great thing for american workers”, he added.
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“we’re Going to have trade, but we’re going to do it one by one. And if someone doesn’t behave properly we will send you a letter of end of the agreement, with 30 days to correct the conduct or otherwise we will stand down”, he warned.
The TPP, conceived as a counterweight to the growing influence of China, was signed in 2015 by 12 countries of the Asia-Pacific region, but has not yet entered into force.
The signatory countries, which account for nearly 40% of the world economy, are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, united States, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Obama regarded the TPP as the best treaty possible, because it includes not only the elimination of trade barriers, but also rules on labour law, environment, intellectual property and state purchases.
In return, during the entire campaign, Trump had stated that the trade agreements signed by the united States had led to a departure of industries to other countries, leaving a trail of unemployment in the interior of the country.
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In line with this vision, already announced that it intends to discuss with the prime minister of Canada and the president of Mexico about a “renegotiation” of the bases of the Treaty of Free Trade of North America, because they consider it disadvantageous to the united States.
The output of the united States can have a huge impact for the ambitious commercial project. The japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, a staunch supporter of the TPP, admitted at the end of 2016 that without the united States “would not make sense”.
Mexico, for its part, has already announced that he is willing to seek agreements with the other signatories in order to keep alive the TPP.
senator John McCain, one of the republicans most prominent in showing their disagreement with Trump, he pointed out that the output of the TPP is “a serious mistake that will have long-term consequences for the american economy and our strategic role in the region of Asia and the Pacific”.
China, the lookout
Trump printed a change to the traditional course of united States towards free trade at the break with the TPP, but you risk to leave the field open to the asian giant.
Governments, republicans and democrats defended ever since free trade, so that the new orientations of Trump involving a radical turn for the world’s largest economy.
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“This is symbolic,” he said to the press the spokesman of the White House, Sean Spicer. “It opens a new era that will favor the american worker before anything else”, he added.
According to Edward Alden, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, now the TPP is “dead” and the government must negotiate bilateral agreements of lesser amplitude.
Leave the TPP involves some risks for the united States. Several experts, and even within the same field of Trump, say that Washington lost a counterweight to china’s growing influence in Asia.
The decision of Trump “offers China the opportunity to rewrite the economic rules to the detriment of american workers,” said republican senator John McCain.
The abandonment pure and simple of the TPP “will consolidate the status of China as the sole dominant actor in the Asia trade,” said Alden.
Second economic power in the world that Trump accused of unfair trade practices and threat to apply retaliation, China may seek to fill the void left by the united States.
Since Trump won the election in November, chinese president Xi Jinping is presented is as the champion of free trade, and has proposed a pair of multilateral treaties.
“it Is critical that the united States not to yield to China’s economic leadership of the world,” says Jake Colvin, of the business association National Foreign Trade Council.
The interior of the united States, the rupture of the TPP can change the rules of the political game in Washington.
The decision of Trump scrambled to republican legislators and business men that have made the free trade dogma.
On the other hand, trade unions and environmental organizations, who on Sunday marched against Trump, can be satisfied.
*AFP
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