FOREIGN POLICY/TARIFFS/TPP/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A trade pact originally conceived by the United States to counter China’s growing economic might in Asia now has a new target: President Trump’s embrace of protectionism.
A group of 11 nations — including major United States allies like Japan, Canada and Australia — is set to sign a broad trade deal on Thursday [3-8-18] that challenges Mr. Trump’s view of trade as a zero-sum game filled with winners and losers. Covering 500 million people on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the pact will represent a new vision for global trade as the United States threatens to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on even its closest friends and neighbors.
Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from an earlier version of the agreement, then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a year ago as one of his first acts in office. It will undeniably be weaker without the participation of the world’s biggest economy.
But the resuscitated deal could serve as a powerful sign of how countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it… The new agreement — known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — will drop tariffs drastically and establish sweeping new trade rules in markets that represent about a seventh of the world’s economy. It will open more markets to free trade in agricultural products and digital services around the region.”
–Motoko Rich and Ernesto Londono, “U.S. Allies to Sign Sweeping Trade Deal in Challenge to Trump,” The New York Times online, Mar. 8, 2018