TPP Withdrawal Seen by Some as a Missed Opportunity
The Trump administration's move to withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (see 1701230041), while not surprising, marks a missed chance for significant improvements to international commerce in the region, observers said. Trump said in the executive order (here) "it is the intention of my Administration to deal directly with individual countries on a one-on-one (or bilateral) basis in negotiating future trade deals." Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative "to provide written notification to the Parties and to the Depository of the TPP, as appropriate, that the United States withdraws as a signatory of the TPP and withdraws from the TPP negotiating process."
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The American Soybean Association expressed disappointment with the withdrawal and said new plans are necessary. “Moving forward, we expect to see a plan in place as soon as possible to engage the TPP partner nations and capture the value that we lose with the withdrawal today," ASA President Ron Moore said (here). "With net farm income down by over 40 percent from levels just a few years ago, we need trade deals with the Asia-Pacific countries to make up for the $4.4 billion in annual net farm income being lost by farmers from not moving forward with the TPP." The Progressive Policy Institute also saw the withdrawal as a miscalculation. "Abandoning the TPP is hardly good news for American exporters and their workers," the PPI said (here). "The TPP would have slashed thousands of high foreign duties and other serious trade barriers, making it significantly easier to sell ‘Made in America’ goods and services to a rapidly growing Asia-Pacific middle class."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., objected, too. “This decision will forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade barriers, open new markets, and protect American invention and innovation. It will create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road at the expense of American workers. And it will send a troubling signal of American disengagement in the Asia-Pacific region at a time we can least afford it," he said in a news release (here). “Abandoning TPP is the wrong decision. Moving forward, it is imperative that America advances a positive trade agenda in the Asia-Pacific that will keep American workers and companies competitive in one of the most economically vibrant and fastest-growing regions in the world.”
Nate Olson and William Reinsch, trade experts at the Stimson Center, also see the withdrawal as short-sighted, they said (here). "Tearing things down is easy. Producing something meaningful and enduring is hard," Olson said. "By washing its hands of TPP, and preparing similar moves on NAFTA, the Trump administration is likely taking an easy road to a very hard lesson." The TPP decision "will be read in Asia as signaling a loss of U.S. interest in the region," Reinsch said. "That opens the door to the expansion of Chinese influence, which is not in our long-term economic or political interest."