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Trump Blinks
Under increasing pressure from the fallout of the trade war with China, it looks like President Trump may be walking back one of his campaign promises:
WASHINGTON—One year after withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Donald Trump has asked his top economic advisers to study the possibility of re-entering the trade pact negotiations.
Trump has deputized Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, and Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, to study the possibility of re-entering the TPP if the terms were favorable, the president told a group of lawmakers on Thursday.
The president’s new openness toward the TPP, which he had said during his campaign was a deal “pushed by special interests who want to rape our country,” comes as he is facing criticism from farmers for his escalating trade battle with China. After Trump took aim at China with new steel and aluminum tariffs, Beijing responded by announcing it would place penalties on a list of agricultural products that would affect swaths of the president’s political base.
As a matter of policy, this is a big win in the column for “Good Trump” — it’s absolutely the right policy move from both an economic or foreign policy perspective. As a political matter, it remains to be seen how his base, vehemently opposed to most trade deals, will take the news that the President is going against them on one of his core campaign promises.
Published in Economics
How is it that I haven’t confronted reality? I said last weekend in @peterrobinson‘s post that Trump was wrong on TPP. You want me to say Trump is wrong on TPP; therefore, I hate him and will not support him any more. That’s what cry babies do. Mature adults, like the Gipper, say “My 80% friend is still my friend.”
An update … President Trump ‘walks back’ eagerness to rejoin TPP; demands better deal
If you react to every move (as if it’s the last one), you’re gonna hurt your neck.
It was Ben Sasse (ulterior motives?) who claimed that President Trump was “re-joining TPP”.
Even National Review reported that … the President only directed Larry Kudlow to “look at” re-joining the TPP …
Oh, just to be clear, I agree with that sentiment almost completely. But that’s wholly separate from assuming he has a clear strategic vision and master plan.
Maybe you should run them for high office.
Certainly, to be quite honest, I’m not always sure what his plan is. It doesn’t always make sense to me. But so many things that matter to me seem to work out well in retrospect. I’m open to the possibility that he knows what he’s doing better than I would know what to do. Paul Ryan, for example, had a clear vision; he knew what he wanted to do and how he hoped to achieve it. He was open, honest, and honorable (like his former running mate), but he never got much done until Trump came along. Maybe a little Sun Tzu and the Art of War is what is needed, not a vision and strategy that is clear to all.
BTW, TPP fell apart when Trump walked away from it. What does that tell you about how important our membership is to the agreement? Doesn’t that imply that if we demand a better deal, we would get it?
Can you give us an example?
Everybody moved on without us and signed a new trade agreement without the US.
Thanks for that link, @columbo!
I like this passage:
The high road indeed! Well done, Sen. Sasse! I hope that certain elements of the Never Trump Resistance will follow the lead of this wise statesman.
I have consistently said the TPP was poorly sold by both parties. It was done in secret and everyone says it will help hem in China, but the exact details are said to be too complex for us mere mortals.
Maybe it is the best Treaty in the history of Mankind. I tend to think anything that complex cannot be that great.
I see an slur against Trump supporters here, that has been made over an over that in effect all Trump supporters are mindless bots.
That is just not so, and it is does not help to say so. Even if it were true, how on Earth does being sarcastic help your cause? It does not. So much for the idea that anti-Trump people are less emotional and more rational. heh.
Again, a slur against a whole group of people. If I support Trump, I must be a fanatic.
this is typical nonsense, and shows us who are the people who just can’t fathom nuance. I will speak for myself. I never said that Trump supporters are mindless bots. I support most of his policies. What I say is that the supporters who support him no matter what he says and does (and there are quite a few) are caught up in a cult of personality, and value Trump even more than his policies. It is you, Bryan, who keep wanting to impugn Skeptics like me, who do not drink the kool aid!
Couldn’t be any worse than what we’re getting.
If you’re trying to defend yourself against charges of being uncivil, you might want to rethink your opening clause.
Moderator Note:
Often, people reach conversational impasses, where they simply and repeatedly cannot see eye-to-eye. It's kindest to avoid attributing this to willful misunderstanding.It is not being to uncivil to say the truth. Bryan refuses to read and understand what I write; instead using ad mononym attacks. He does the same to Gary, who doesn’t seem to mind. I do.
I am not sure what an ad mononym is, however since a mononym is a single person name like “Madonna”, maybe it means I should go by “Bryan”.
George, I will say that I believe that you are not calling all Trump supporters mindless bots, and that you do not think I am one of the Trump supporters you do think are mindless bots.
A lot of wiggle room there in saying “if the deal is better than what was offered to Obama.” It’s a position that maximizes his freedom of action, which is exactly the sort of “genius” Trump has.
If he decides to do the deal, he can claim he improved on what Obama did. If he decides not to, he can claim the deal was bad and that he’s sticking by his promises. Since there’s never a clear definition of what needs improvement with the deal, he’s free to take any position and still not “lose.”
I am not sure I can cope with more fruitless discussion about what is and what is not appropriate to say about the ethics or lack of ethics of supporters of Trump, and go round and round again in circles.
I get dizzy if we go round in circles too much!
My daughter-in-law, who used to be a debating star at university, says that when arguing, you should always assume “noble intent” on the part of your debating opponent. It keeps you to the issues, not the personalities. I believe that she is right (though I have to admit I am a bit of hypocrite and am not always so good at keeping to this myself).
So can I suggest that the discussion returns to the real topic—is the TPP a good thing, is the TPP a bad thing, will Trump really join it, is he just striking a negotiating stance, is this a means to pressure China a bit more on North Korea, and so forth? At least these are real substantive issues.
I know nothing whatsoever about the TPP. Well, I’ve read bits of the Wikipedia article on it. It looked . . . well, messy. Can anyone recommend a short, easy to understand article that at least describes it? Or is that an impossible request to fulfil because there are no simple explanations?
It looks like it is too early to evaluate the replacement treaty, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership because it was only signed last month. It does seem to be one of those “you’ll find out what’s in it after you pass it” types of legislation.
Not a single person who holds this position can articulate what about these deals is skewed or bad. I’m still waiting to hear what was wrong with TPP a year ago that isn’t wrong with it today.
So @fredcole was right – Trump reversed course within 12 hours. Nice.
Actually as far as I know the other 11 countries went ahead and negotiated the deal, I think they’re holding off on signing it because so much of it is based on US Law and doesn’t really work without US participation.
George, Bob, John, Mitt, Jeb!, Marco, Ted, Mitch, John, Paul, etc. …. take notes.
The entire text of the deal was posted for anyone to read well before it even made it to the Senate. I read it. @jamesofengland has read it. You could have read it too if you were interested in learning what was in it.
Seems he is saying the exact same thing today as he did yesterday.
I could quibble here or there about whether these are good things, accurate or if the President deserves most of the credit for them but most of these are good things. And you forgot routing ISIS and the embassy in Jerusalem.
This I think is what divides Trump TrueBelievers from Trump Skeptics – the former see this as evidence of strategic genius, the latter see it as used car salesman stuff.
No. I’m not asking for a list of stuff Trump claims credit for. I’m asking for what we were actually talking about:
Stuff where it looked like Trump has no [expletive] idea what he was doing, where it was just chaos, but then it worked out well in retrospect.