Good news for the UK and Europe - TPP is now dead. Good news for the UK as Trump wants to use the North American Free Trade Agreement - the UK could join.
President Trump pulled the US out of the world’s largest free trade agreement yesterday and threatened America’s biggest manufacturers with punitive tariffs as he moved swiftly to bury key parts of President Obama’s legacy.
Mr Trump signed an order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation pact signed by his predecessor after years of negotiations. It would have cut 18,000 tariffs between countries including the US, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, Australia and others, taking a big step towards creating a single market of goods and services twice the size of the European Union and covering 800 million people.
Mr Trump railed against the TPP as a key part of his campaign argument that globalisation was costing American jobs. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” he said as he signed the memorandum, calling it “a great thing for the American worker”.
He also made clear yesterday that he intends to confront Mexico and Canada urgently about their 23-year-old free trade deal. He said renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) would be the key issue when he meets President Peña Nieto of Mexico, and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, this month.
The order to withdraw from TPP talks was followed by two other executive orders: a directive to freeze government hiring except for military positions and a prohibition on the distribution of federal aid money to international charities that offer abortion services.
However, on his first full day in office, it was trade and jobs that Mr Trump wanted to emphasise. He told manufacturers over breakfast that he would impose a “very major” border tax on companies that moved operations abroad. Those present included executives from Lockheed Martin, Dow Chemical and Ford. He vowed to cut business taxes to less than 20 per cent, down from 35 per cent, and to slash at least 75 per cent of government regulations to entice companies to build in America.
Mr Trump also met union leaders and asked them how he could improve the working lives of their members. “What we want to do is bring manufacturing back,” Mr Trump told the business leaders gathered in the Roosevelt Room. “It’s what the people wanted, it’s one of the reasons I’m sitting here instead of somebody else sitting here. And I think it’s something I’m good at.”
Mr Trump’s withdrawal from the TTP was in part symbolic: Mr Obama signed the US up to the deal but Congress declined to approve it. However, it underlined his intention to turn his protectionist rhetoric from the campaign trail into action. He had argued that free trade deals such as the TPP and Nafta harmed middle-class Americans by encouraging companies to move jobs abroad.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Comments
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I wonder if/how Fender will be affected?
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
In all, probably no bad thing really. Obama's foreign policy wasn't his best point.
I actually suspect Trump may turn out to be more like Mussolini than Hitler, in fact.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
Or the odd gunslinger .. :-)
English Bob: Well there's a dignity royalty. A majesty that precludes the likelihood of assassination. If you were to point a pistol at a king or a queen your hands would shakes as though palsied.
Barber: Oh I wouldn't point no pistol at nobody sir.
English Bob: Well that's a wise policy, as wise policy. But if you did. I can assure you, if you did, that the sight of royalty would cause you to dismiss all thoughts of bloodshed and you would stand... how shall I put it? In awe. Now, a president... well I mean.. why not shoot a president?
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Awww man, now you've gone and put us all on a CIA watch list. I already have problems sleeping from the noise of the Black Helicopters....
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Any deal with the UK we will get scraps and be the loser in the deal.
We are not a large enough economy to have much leverage against the size of the US, if only we were a part of a larger block...oh wait...
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
His rhetoric appeases the rednecks while his actions could boost the economy and generate jobs. And his (so far) lack of appetite for war is refreshing.
He could get a lot of deals done.
On social policy he wants to turn back the clock to the 1950s but a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic seem to want that too.
Yet he's probably the sort of person who's mind could be changed with quiet persuasion by someone he respects. Liberals denouncing him and waving placards will have the opposite effect.
hmm, on the other hand that does sound a bit like I'm advocating appeasement!
For the rest of us, this might not be a bad thing (the slightly worrying relationship with Russia aside), but for Americans it's a pretty terrifying prospect. Possibly even more than we should be about Theresa May and her desire for an authoritarian state (I'm personally hoping that the Brexit turmoil lasts for the next four years to distract her until the next election).
History has a habit of repeating itself...
A slightly sideways look through the eyes of architecture and Jonathan Meades as he investigates the architecture of Mussolini's Italy, and discovers a dictator who couldn't dictate...
Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07d7nj9/ben-building-mussolini-monuments-and-modernism
available for 9 days on iPlayer
(I did get the quote of course. Richard Harris in Unforgiven. Brilliant film...)
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!