Denise Gonzalez        

Friday Apr 20 at 12:09am                 Manage Discussion Entry                  

A Canadian Press report stated that the U.S. would not get special treatment if it wants to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that eleven countries have signed without the U.S. after Trump bailed out of the deal soon after being sworn in as president (Blanchfield, 2013). The reconstructed TPP, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), contains provisions suspended from the original TPP agreement. It has been reassembled to address the needs of the eleven nations that signed, and those nations may not make it that easy for the U.S. to come in and rejoin without expecting some serious compromises from the U.S.

I feel that we would benefit from rejoining the CPTPP because Obama had projected the deal would have increased U.S. exports by $123 billion and estimated an increase of 650,000 jobs. I don’t think that they will allow the U.S. back in because President Trump is stating that he would consider rejoining only if we could get a substantially better deal than the first agreement. The substantial changes that Trump needs may not be beneficial to the signed nations. The current members are not overly eager to make concessions for Trump, who publicly rejected the TPP. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet stated that Chile would welcome the U.S back, but they would not start over, rather the U.S. would need to rejoin under the current conditions. They will not be lifting those suspended provisions for the U.S. to rejoin, even though having 12 members signed means that the representation of the nations covered will go from 13% of the global gross domestic product (GDP) to 40% GDP (Miyamoto, 2018).

Blanchard, M. (2018). No special treatment for the U.S. if it wants to rejoin TPP: official. Financial Post, March 8, 2018. Retrieved from http://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/canada-chasing-trade-deal-with-south-american-block-after-signing-new-tpp (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Miyamoto, H. (2018). TPP can’t be redone to please the U.S, Chilean president says. Nikkei Asian Review, February 27, 2018. Retrieved from https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/TPP-can-t-be-redone-to-please-US-Chilean-president-says (Links to an external site.)Links to an external s

professor response to my post

You are correct that the world stage has changed.  I believe the US has lost the respect of many of the sovereign nations.

China and Russia, also superpowers in their own right, are waking up.     The US threatens to put tariffs on steel and aluminum going into China.  Was there no thought that they would retaliate in some way?  Was there no thought on how this might affect this country’s economy as well?

The bromance between Putin and Trump has deteriorated since the chemical weapon attack by the Syrian government on its own people.  Putin denied knowledge.  We bombed 4 of Syria’s facilities along with France and the UK. 

Trump has tweeted very nasty tweets about Putin, which I don’t think was a good idea.   Trump was going to put new sanctions on Russian businesses, which he changed his mind about after the UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced them.

There is no consistency, which does not help how our allies see our foreign policies.    Why would any country trust us?