PM adamant on TPP, Trump flags withdrawal

The president-elect has been holed up in Trump Tower and his golf club in New Jersey in recent days, meeting with a parade of potential advisers and cabinet members.

“While other TPP members could create a parallel agreement without the USA and move forward, the economic benefits will be significantly reduced without the US participating”, said Rajiv Biswas, chief Asia-Pacific economist at IHS Global Insight.

In a Chinese-language editorial Tuesday, Communist party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said China-US relations were “too big to fail”.

The president-elect had vowed both to scuttle the TPP – President Barack Obama’s signature trade initiative – and renegotiate NAFTA.

He made the announcement in a video messageoutlining what he intends to do first when he takes office in January. This was demonstrated by the dramatic intervention of the Walloon regional government in the signing of CETA, the bloc’s trade deal with Canada. The TPP excludes China, and was widely seen as an attempt by the United States to secure its leading role in the Asia-Pacific against an emerging China.

“The TPP is in fact not about boosting free trade”, Xinhua, the state news agency said on Saturday.

The UK government will doubtless welcome this shift to bilateral trade deals, but one reason why Trump may view them favourably is because it places the United States in the driving seat as the larger player.

Finally, they could just abandon it and look elsewhere for a 21st century trade deal.

Chen Wenling, chief economist of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said during a televised panel discussion on Monday that the two countries should enhance their collaboration on trade. “Pivot to Asia” is a broad-based US strategy in Asia proposed by the Obama administration, including various fronts such as trade and security. Potential candidates to join include mainland China and Russian Federation.

The TPP, a free trade pact between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, has been signed but not yet ratified by the US lawmakers. But the US will need to think about what role it wants to play in Asia and how it will access fast-growing markets there, he said. And Beijing has been pushing its own trade deals with leaders from around the Pacific. Some experts have suggested that the other 11 member countries should continue to pursue the deal without the U.S. Proposed dates for an agreement have come and gone, but an RCEP deal could be reached as soon as next year.

Deborah Elms, who runs the Singapore-based Asian Trade Centre consultancy and advises governments, said the lack of USA involvement in future trade deals could spur more off-shoring by US companies. “That means you need to be physically present with at least some part of your operation”, Elms said. In an interview with “60 Minutes”, he said that he would likely keep key portions of Obamacare.

“I would be trumpeting loudly from the rooftops”.

But it would still be hard to overtake the US’s prominent global position.

“We would like to push the negotiation process to make headway at an early date”, said the spokesman, Geng Shuang, at a regular briefing. This incorporates scrapping controls on producing energy and pulling back from certain trade agreements.