1/23/2019

ASIA/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Three days after being sworn into office as the nation’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump on this day in 2017 fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an executive order pulling the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade pact. The president called the TPP — which had been negotiated during Barack Obama’s term in office but had never been submitted to the Senate for ratification — ‘a rape of our country.’ The participating countries had approved the trade deal on Feb. 4, 2016, even as the U.S. presidential election campaign gathered momentum. In addition to the United States, the signatories were Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. When Trump withdrew, the agreement could not enter into force. The remaining 11 nations negotiated a new trade agreement called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incorporated most of the provisions of the TPP and which entered into force on Dec. 30, 2018.”

Andrew Glass, “Trump scuttles Trans-Pacific trade pact, Jan. 23, 2017,” Politico, January 23, 2019 12:20 am