06.28.2017 11:44 AM

The day Trump handed power to China

Full story here.

Snippet:

These investors, trade experts and government officials are still stunned by an event that got next to no attention in the U.S. but was an earthquake out here — and a gift that will keep on giving America’s allies pain and China gain for years to come. That was Trump’s decision to tear up the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal in his first week in office — clearly without having read it or understanding its vast geo-economic implications.

(Trump was so ignorant about TPP that when he was asked about it in a campaign debate in November 2015 he suggested that China was part of it, which it very much is not.)
Trump simply threw away the single most valuable tool America had for shaping the geo-economic future of the region our way and for pressuring China to open its markets. Trump is now trying to negotiate trade openings with China alone — as opposed to negotiating with China as the head of a 12-nation TPP trading bloc that was based on U.S. values and interests and that controlled 40 percent of the global economy.
It is hard to think of anything more stupid. And China’s trade hard-liners are surely laughing in their sleeves.

6 Comments

  1. lou says:

    Too bad Justin beat him to the punch. But since Justin admires their “basic dictatorship” , guess that makes it OK

  2. Mario says:

    Aside from the trade in goods the TPP free-trade deal covered, it also opened up everyone’s personal data and privacy as governments would have less control over limits to access, etc.

    TPP has provisions that gave corporations the ability to sue governments over internal polices above and beyond NAFTA.

  3. Matt says:

    Well sadly Trudeau isn’t far behind.

    First it was the Environment Minister saying Canada would welcome more Chinese investment in the oil sands, the the Liberals approved a Chinese takeover of Norsat WITHOUT a formal national security review according to the Globe ans Mail.

    Norsat makes components for the U.S. military. They are not amused.

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    What comfort we can take in knowing that himself is not a politician. Yeah, I think it shows by now.

    • Matt says:

      His supporters like the fact he isn’t a politician though.

      Not related to the topic but Senate Republicans were complaining that Trump wasn’t out in the public fighting to drum up support for their health care bill.

      Then Trump called all the Senate Republicans to the White House for a meeting to talk about the bill.

      Now some Senate Republicans are quietly saying they DON’T want Trump out there because he clearly has no idea what is in the bill.

  5. Matthew says:

    There is no need for continuing surprise. Donald Trump and the majority of American people do not believe that the Liberal trade regime is a good thing. So yeah, they are gonna try to unwind all the paraphenalia. The TPP will not mean much of anything if they succeed. If they do not succeed, they will be badly hurt, and it will be because nobody else agreed with them. If/When they try to shut down the World Bank, or the IMF, the rest of the World is gonna have to decide to either fund it and govern it without the USA, or fold up international trade regime for a couple generations. I do not know how the UN can be continued if the US decides a veto over the World is not good enough.

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