President Trump’s administration is “studying” the economic significance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after 11 Pacific Rim countries signed the pact, despite Trump’s withdrawal from the trade pact.
“The administration is studying how the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will affect American workers and America’s interests in the Indo-Pacific region,” Tillerson said Friday.
Eleven U.S. allies signed the agreement on Thursday, a move that coincided with Trump’s signing of an executive order imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. It’s a sharp about-face for international trade policy: U.S. policy-makers in both parties long had conceived of TPP as a way to mitigate the threat of China dominating the world economy in the 21st century.
Trump scrapped the pact upon taking office and called it an unfair agreement. “Among the core principles of the Trump administration’s economic policy are protecting American jobs, ensuring fairness and reciprocity in trade relationships, and advancing America’s international economic competitiveness,” Tillerson said.
At the same time, the TPP countries may allow China to take the place of the United States in the multi-national agreement.
“This will be open to anyone who accepts its components,” Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz said Thursday, per the New York Times. “It’s not an agreement against anyone. It’s in favor of open trade.”
Tillerson has been criticizing China’s “predatory economics” for months. In talks with officials from India, South America, and Africa, he has warned repeatedly that China uses economic investment as a tool to dominate poorer neighbors.
“They do not bring significant job creation locally,” Tillerson said Thursday. “[A]nd oftentimes, the financing models are structured in a way that the country, when it gets into trouble financially, loses control of its own infrastructure or its own resources through default. So our message is for countries to consider carefully what the terms of those agreements are, and not forfeit any elements of your sovereignty as you enter into such arrangements with China.”
He emphasized Friday that the United States still wants economic partnerships with the members of TPP.
“The United States values its trade relationships with each of the signatories to the CPTPP and looks forward to engaging them on ways to strengthen and expand trade on the basis of fairness and reciprocity,” Tillerson said.
