President Trump said Wednesday he doesn’t want the U.S. to enter into a resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying he would prefer to have bilateral trade deals unless “they offered us a deal I can’t refuse.”
Trump withdrew from the TPP after negotiations under President Barack Obama with a group of 11 other countries, but told farm-state officials last week that he instructed his economic adviser Larry Kudlow and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to re-examine joining TPP.
The reversal stunned both sides of the policy debate, but Trump said at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he was misunderstood.
“The media has not covered the TPP correctly,” Trump said. “I don’t want to go back into TPP, but if they offered us a deal I can’t refuse, on behalf of the United States, I would do it. But I like bilateral better. I think it’s better for our country, I think it’s better for our workers and I much would prefer a bilateral deal. A deal directly with Japan.”
He continued: “We already have a deal with six of the 11 nations in the TPP. So we already have trade deals and the others we can make very easily.”
Trump said the countries that participated in TPP negotiations “are all calling wanting to make a deal. But we think that’s much better for us. So unless they offer us a deal that we could not refuse, I would not go back into TPP. ”
“In the meantime, we are negotiating, and what I really would prefer is negotiating a one-on-one deal with Japan,” he said.
