President-elect Donald Trump said the United States will officially withdraw from the Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on day one of his presidency.
During the 2016 presidential election campaign, Trump railed against the TPP on a regular basis, characterizing it as a “horrible deal.” Trump promised to take executive action to officially withdraw the U.S. from the TPP.
Twelve nations, including the U.S., Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, agreed to the trade deal in 2015, but has to be ratified in individual countries. The agreement was meant to solidify and strengthen economic ties by reducing tariffs and enforcing intellectual property laws
The U.S. will “negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores,” the president-elect promised in a video message released Monday.
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“It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble,” Trump said of the TPP during a GOP primary debate in Nov. 2015. “It’s a deal that’s designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone.”
Opponents, including Trump, criticized not just the substance of the agreement, but the way in which it was negotiated behind closed doors.
While Trump criticized Obama’s signature trade deal across his 18-month campaign, the Democratic primary also saw self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders rally against the TPP in a bid to court working class Democrats.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then also changed her position on the deal. She came out against the TPP, bowing to political pressure not just from the progressive left, but also from blue-collar democrats in the rust belt. Clinton even publicly denounced the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was championed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Trump constantly reminded voters of Clinton’s stunning reversal on the TPP, a deal that she once called the “gold standard” of trade agreements. (RELATED: Surrogates Struggle To Explain Open Border, Open Trade Comments)
In Monday’s announcement, Trump said that he would cancel restrictions on energy production and promised to “cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs.”
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