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Trump: I'll Ditch TPP Trade Deal on Day One of My Presidency (arstechnica.com) 600

US President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that the U.S. will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a trade deal involving 12 Pacific Rim nations -- "on day one" of his presidency. From a report on ArsTechnica: Trump, in a YouTube video outlining plans for his first 100 days in office, said: "I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country." He added: "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores." An emphasis on bilateral trade deals may call into question both the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), involving dozens of nations, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Although the latter is between the US and the European Union, the complex political structure of the EU means that effectively 28 nations are involved and can influence the outcome of the deal. This was demonstrated by the dramatic intervention of the Walloon regional government in the signing of CETA, the bloc's trade deal with Canada.
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Trump: I'll Ditch TPP Trade Deal on Day One of My Presidency

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  • Great for China! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RandomSurfer314 ( 4412795 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:41AM (#53339407)
    They are already planning an Asian trade partnership under their leadership. (Forgot its name, look it up yourself.)
    • No principles. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:58AM (#53339567)

      For years up to a week ago: TPP is an abomination love child between Hitler and Satan and needs to die.

      Now that Trump doesn't want it: This will ruin the nation and will only benefit China. TPP Must Go Forward!

      • Welcome to Slashdot! Please check your logic and sanity at the door. msmash will show you to the latest clickbait, or you can follow BeuaHD to the Slashvertisements, though you'll have to sit through a few of his unintelligible summaries that he somehow copy pastad incorrectly.

      • People have short memories.
      • Re:No principles. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CrankyFool ( 680025 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @03:17PM (#53341387)
        I don't know, man. Personally, I absolutely detest Trump and I think that at a social level he's pretty bad for us. Opinions will, of course differ. But I thought the TPP was a terrible deal for the US and that the Democrats pushing it (hello Obama and "I was against it after I was for it" Clinton) were working primarily in the interests of the moneyed elites. Trump's made a bunch of decision since being elected that I don't like (e.g. Bannon, and having his kids in heads-of-state meetings), but him coming out against TPP? Yeah, that's a good one. I appreciate and support that. It's easy, I think, for us to become so partisan that literally everything the other side does is obviously evil. We saw that, I'd argue, with the Republicans and Obama. We can do better than that. I will support and applaud actions that Trump takes that are good, and fight aggressively against the other ones.
        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @04:52PM (#53342195)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by CrankyFool ( 680025 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @04:58PM (#53342263)
            It's interesting to me that in response to a relatively conciliatory "measure the policies, not the man" post on my part, you're choosing to find some other approach to find a fight where none exists.

            You want to talk about HRC's "super-predators" comment? Yeah, let's talk about that. I have a Black son. I hate that she made that comment, and I hate that she never even bothered to apologize for it. I found HRC, on a personal level, totally odious. I've said so to other Liberal friends (I do still consider myself a pretty ardent Liberal). And I voted for Sanders, and would have happily voted for him in the General Elections if I had a choice.

            And it's also worth noting that HRC's super-predator comment was made 20 years ago. You can find odious things she's done from this decade :).

            As for Bannon being racist or not ... man, I don't think there's going to be any way to talk about this that will convince you, because you'll find reasons to discount any evidence I throw at you. I think that if Bannon were to personally lynch some Jews you'd probably argue that it wasn't that he hates Jews, it's just that those guys happened to have ripped him off. But here's a link for other people who are interested in making up their own mind:

            http://www.motherjones.com/kev... [motherjones.com]

            (Yes, that's his ex-wife talking, so obviously she's biased; and yes, that's Mother Jones, which is obviously biased. You'll be able to discount anyone who disagrees with you as obviously biased. Enjoy your bubble).

      • For years up to a week ago: TPP is an abomination love child between Hitler and Satan and needs to die.

        Now that Trump doesn't want it: This will ruin the nation and will only benefit China. TPP Must Go Forward!

        Eh? The people presenting the views are not Slashdot. I have yet to see anyone on Slashdot say that TPP must go forward. The TPP is indeed pure evil in relation to intellectual property.

        That does not mean it can't have good sides too. Regardless of the good parts of it, the bad parts make it untenable overall. What that means is that if China gets to dictate shit now, it is the IP people who have put us in this position by making TPP into poison.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @12:18PM (#53339773)

      Bernie Sanders' supporter here. I didn't vote on Nov. 8th, because I simply couldn't back a lobbyist like Clinton. By killing the TPP, and maybe also TiSA and TTIP, Trump has just taken the most progressive political choice in the last 40 years, it's the first real reversal of the globalization process, something unthinkable until a few years ago. Clinton would have surely "renegotiated" the TPP, and after few useless and cosmetic changes, passed it. After all, it was "the gold standard" for her. Obama himself wanted it, and he's technically supposed to be more progressive than Clinton.

      Surely I don't like many of Trump's proposals (slash taxes also for the rich, "clean" coal...), but on trade he could be the most "leftist" president in decades.

      Instead of complaining, next time choose the right candidate at the Democratic primaries.

    • it's pretty self explanatory.

  • by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:43AM (#53339425)

    I would plan for a lot of this sort of thing from him. False shows of decisiveness. A lot of people seem to think that "doing something" is what a leader does, even if that "something" isn't well thought out or planned.

    He doesn't know how to fix Obamacare but he'll "do something", lol.

    I expect Trump to be worse than his base expects, but better than the melting down, hysterical media and left cries about.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:55AM (#53339539) Journal

      False shows of decisiveness. A lot of people seem to think that "doing something" is what a leader does, even if that "something" isn't well thought out or planned.

      Scary, because that's how we got into Ireq: "We are doing something about terror!" (Alternative spelling intentional.)

    • by snookiex ( 1814614 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:59AM (#53339583) Homepage

      I don't know if this is false decisiveness, but he has to do something, be it a stunt or not. He's already getting a lot of heat from almost half of the country. He needs to consolidate and keep calm his electoral base at least. Politics, just like economy, is more about emotions than technicalities.

      • by painandgreed ( 692585 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @12:53PM (#53340131)

        I don't know if this is false decisiveness, but he has to do something, be it a stunt or not. He's already getting a lot of heat from almost half of the country. He needs to consolidate and keep calm his electoral base at least. Politics, just like economy, is more about emotions than technicalities.

        To paraphrase Caesar in Rome: "If I do nothing, I will appear weak. If I accept the deal my predecessor made, my support will turn against me. Therefore, I must strike it down.

        I suspect we'll see a lot of this.

    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      I expect Trump to be worse than his base expects, but better than the melting down, hysterical media and left cries about.

      How quickly we normalize. My thought after reading this was "I can live with the lack of Nuclear Armageddon".

    • He was railing against the TPP from the start of his campaign. It's not like this is a new thing.

    • An ObamaCare alternative just requires some very difficult ( and unpopular in certain circles ) decisions to be made.

      You start by declaring Health Care a right and a critical one at that. Health shouldn't be a perk for the rich only.
      You then regulate the entire Health Care industry. This includes Big Pharma.
      Means: No more 5000% price increases on medications or $50,000 hospital bills that your insurance refuses to cover
      Once regulated, the prices are now something most can afford and makes it easier to swi

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:48AM (#53339469)

    *EVERYONE* here was bitching about TPP until Trump decided to do away with it.

    Because Trump.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      *EVERYONE* here was bitching about TPP until Trump decided to do away with it.

      I haven't yet seen any non Trump supporters lamenting the passing of TTP. So, your outrage appears misplaced. And no, finding one or two crazy ACs doesn't really prove anything except that AC is anonymous.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluegutang ( 2814641 )

      Trump wouldn't even understand, much less agree with, the reasons people here gave for opposing TPP.

    • yup, never let it be said that the world doesn't have a shortage of hypocrites.

  • I thought this was up to congress now.
    Does the Rule of Law no longer apply? If congress likes the treaty, they can ratify it before Trump is coronated.

    • You an ratify anything you want. You can also pull out at any time. And Republicans won the next Congress, so say bye bye to the TPP (good).
    • Congress through its leadership can block any legislation from even getting considered. It's not in the constitution that way, but it's the way the procedural processes have evolved. Like the filibuster. Last year, McConnell told the WH TPP won't even be considered, just like the SCOTUS nominee. If it doesn't get to the floor for a vote, it never happened. The new administration can then merely come in, say we're withdrawing it and it's gone from any agenda consideration.

      Unfortunately for all of us, lef

    • Foreign policy is broadly an executive function, but none of it is binding on us until the senate ratifies a treaty.

      TPP is just a group attempting to write a treaty. Eventually, the completed treaty would be presented to the member governments to ratify. They aren't at that stage yet, so the president is free to tell the working group that we aren't going to participate any more. In theory, they could continue working on the treaty and present it to us anyway, but I think everyone understands the futilit

  • Congress will ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:57AM (#53339555)

    ... not Trump.

    They weren't going to approve it anyway.

    It's like Trump declaring that, on day one, he'll adjust the atmospheric composition to be 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.

  • ..or if it goes badly:
    Thanks Obama!
  • I'm confused (Score:4, Informative)

    by adonoman ( 624929 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @11:57AM (#53339565)
    Is the right pro, or against globalization? I thought free trade capitalism was an economic right-wing staple. It was only the looney leftist occupy-wall-street nutters that were against free trade.
    • Trump isn't Republican or right wing. He is a NYC Democrat. Just look at his history.
    • Trump is not a traditional Republican. He was actually a declared Democrat until a few years ago. Of course so is Lyndon Larouche...

    • Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)

      by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @12:16PM (#53339745) Journal

      Neoconservatives are pro-globalization. Traditional conservatives are anti-globalism, pro-nationalism. Whatever Trump is, he's an economic nationalist, so he gets the support of traditional conservatives, like the Tea Party voters (note this is distinct from how the Tea Party candidates like Rubio got co-opted into the Neocon establishment. The story of the Tea Party is voters worker their asses off to get "their" people into office in 2010 - 2014 only to be met with immediate betrayal, resulting in the seething, frothing anger that enabled Trump).

      Hopefully with the election of Trump and the destruction of the Republican and Democrat establishments we can relegate neoconservatism to the ash heap of history, along with the worst of leftist identity politics.

    • by r1348 ( 2567295 )

      Political spectrum is not a single-axis diagram.

  • There has also been talk about ending the H1-B visa program. So, all the slave labor from Pakistan can start packing your bags, you're going home.

  • I'm Torn (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sgrover ( 1167171 )

    On the one hand, I think that the TPP is a horrendous trade deal that negatively pushes US views on intellectual property onto other sovereign nations.
    On the otherhand anything Trump says he is going to do needs to be resisted, because his actions seem to be incredibly self centered and poorly thought out, or designed to promote Trump first and foremost.

    It will be interesting to see how this paradoxical conundrum plays out.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • True, and as much as I dislike Trump, I for one am glad that he's still saying he plans on scuttling the TPP. At least assuming he's not just holding out for his own palms to be greased by the megacorps first. After all, one of the few other points he was consistent on during his campaign was eliminating the excessive influence of Wall Street, etc. on the government - but his transition team picks are certainly making it look like exactly the opposite will be the case.

        When dealing with a con man with as l

    • I would suggest you oppose actions you deem to not be in your (or the nation's) best interests, but take as happy accident the stuff that works out in your favor. So, cheer the death of the TPP, because that's in your interest. I would also suggest cheering that it seems we will not be going to war against Russia over Syria, and will instead stop arming ISIS and will let Russia stomp them out.

  • TPP I think we can all agree was a horrible piece of work. Negotiated in secret, lots of provisions that only big business would like etc. Obama has given up on it, Trump ran against, The Senate won't consider it so it's dead in its current form. That doesn't mean it can't be renegotiated and reworked and I think that'll be the tactic moving forward which may result in multiple agreements. This huge conglomeration of things that made it into TPP to me at least made it seem like a shadow government and fr

  • Someone needs to tell him that that's not the way it works.

    Nothing gets done on the first day except for maybe figuring out how the blinds work and where the bathrooms are.

    Legislation is just a little more complicated than that. He couldn't repeal anything on his first day even if the entire country, Congress included, wanted it done. Legislation isn't like a light switch.

    • Your mistake is believing that Trump understands how government works. This would be a common error as his supporters likely believe he does as well. He probably believes that as president he has unlimited authority to do things our constitution doesn't allow him to do. He does have authority to change how government works a little bit, but he doesn't have the authority to unilaterally withdraw the US from ratified treaties or any of the 99% of things he's promised.

      Hell he might actually understand that, bu

  • If Trump undoes executive actions and throws decision making back to Congress, hasn't he done a good thing?
  • by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @12:54PM (#53340147)

    Well Trump is throwing out one prospective trade deal and substituting other prospective trade deals without actually modifying current trade relations in any way. So this looks like a prima facie attempt to honor a campaign promise without, in fact, making a change. Either his anti-trade campaign messages were empty demagogic promises or his new Republican allies educated him on trade.

    The latter would be a good thing. People's intuitions about trade are often mistaken:

    - They believe that employment is zero sum, that is, that the total number of jobs is fixed, so that if a foreigner gains a job, a U.S. citizen must necessarily lose a job. This is incorrect. Foreigners to not "steal" jobs from Americans. In fact, global employment levels can and do fluctuate.

    - They overlook that every producer is also a consumer. If you are employed and make something and sell it, you then have an income with which to purchase goods and services produced by others. As with employment, global production and consumption are variable, not fixed. The more people work, the more goods there are to go around. "Getting rid of those foreign slackers," is just as disdainful of others as "Those damn foreigners are stealing our jobs," but, pragmatically, is more likely to lead to socially beneficial policy outcomes. Consider improvements in the quality of life and reduction in our tax burden if Africans had productive jobs instead instead of relying on the industrialized world to support them with foreign aid.

    - They are unaware of the law of comparative advantage, which tells us that both those with an absolute advantage and those with an absolute disadvantage benefit from trade. The naive and incorrect assumption is that those producers with an absolute advantage displace all others.

    - They forget that trade is an exchange. They give us stuff and we give them stuff in exchange. To give them stuff, we have to have stuff to give them. Who makes that stuff? Employees. You can not trade goods without having domestic employees to manufacture the goods which you produce to trade.

    - They are unaware of the balance of payments and fear that all the money will end up abroad. Foreigners hoarding cash is a benefit to the U.S., because when foreigners hoard U.S. dollars they give us cars, televisions, and computers and all we have given them in trade is little pieces of paper with drawings of our presidents. Less that beneficial-to-us cash hoarding, over time all purchases are reciprocated, so that for every sale to the United States by a foreign entity there is a sale to the foreign entity by from the U.S. There has to be, because when we buy something from a foreign nation the foreigners are left holding U.S. cash which is only of value if spent in the U.S., or traded to someone else. That someone else can only exchange U.S. cash with others or redeem it for U.S. goods. If it is traded abroad perpetually and never redeemed, that is cash hoarding and we benefit.

       

  • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @01:19PM (#53340369)

    I hope when Trump exits the TPP that the rest of the signatories will go back and strip out all the parts the US lobbied to put in that nobody else wanted, like the changes to copyright laws. No need for them to be in there anymore.

    http://www.michaelgeist.ca/201... [michaelgeist.ca]

    May end up being a much better agreement without the US.

  • by Gonoff ( 88518 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @02:49PM (#53341169)

    Could someone ask him to dump the TTIP as well?

    As far as the world is allowed to know, it is pretty much the same thing but across the Atlantic instead.

  • by melting_clock ( 659274 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @03:03PM (#53341281)

    As an Australian, Trump killing the TPP is a good thing. There are some parts of the TPP that would have forced some crazy laws on us, without opening up enough trade opportunities. Stripping out everything that US wanted in the TPP and the other countries involved going ahead with a new agreement should be relatively easy. The US is probably not going to be hurt by not being involved and most of the other countries involved will do better, with the likely exceptions of Canada and Mexico.

    The Australian economy depends more on trade with China than with the US and we already have a free trade agreement with China, although China still has too many tariffs. China is already pushing their own broad alternative to the TPP which might mean further tariff reductions. A trade war between the US and China could have some positives for the rest of the world.

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