Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Trans Pacific Partnership

  • Democrats Poll Better for Senate, Trump Rethinks TPP

    The conventional wisdom in the United States is that Democrats are likely to take control of the House of Representatives in November while Republicans are likely to defend their majority in the Senate.

    That’s changing, according to FiveThirtyEight.

    Democrats are polling better in Arizona and Tennessee. Ted Cruz is still likely to win reelection in Texas, but Democrat Beto O’Rourke is mounting a serious challenge.

    In Florida, it’s the other way around. The candidacy of Republican governor Rick Scott is making Democrat Bill Nelson’s reelection a little less likely.

    For more, read my story from February. (more…)

  • Trump Agrees to Meet Kim, Trans Pacific Partnership Continues Without Him

    Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from Kim Jong-un to meet one-on-one. It would be the first time a sitting American president met with the North Korean dictator.

    North Korea craves international legitimacy, which the United States have deliberately withheld. Trump’s break with decades of policy is risky — but it’s not if existing policy has worked. North Korea remains a rogue state. It has only continued its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

    The challenge now, as Fred Kaplan writes in Slate, is organizing a careful diplomacy that includes coordinating common negotiating positions with Japan and South Korea.

    Unfortunately, Trump has yet to appoint an ambassador to Seoul. The State Department’s top North Korea expert has resigned. None of the three top foreign-policy officials in Trump’s government — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster — have much experience in Asia.

    Also read this thread by Robert E. Kelly about why Korea hands are skeptical. (more…)

  • World Not Waiting for America: Pacific Nations Continue Trade Deal

    In another sign that the world isn’t waiting for the United States, eleven countries in Asia and Latin America have announced their intention to keep the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) alive.

    One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president was to withdraw from the trade pact.

    Japan and Mexico stepped into America’s place to salvage it.

    Both have also intensified their trade negotiations with the EU, which itself is rushing to defend globalization from a suddenly protectionist America. (more…)

  • Trump Blunders by Withdrawing from Trans Pacific Partnership

    Donald Trump made good on his campaign promise to withdraw the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Monday.

    It was one of his first acts as president — and a terrible mistake.

    Not only is Trump robbing American companies of business opportunities in the Far East; he disappoints American allies in the region and cedes the initiative to China. (more…)

  • In Era of Trump, Australia Looks to China for Leadership on Trade

    Sydney Australia
    Skyline of Sydney, Australia (Unsplash/Dan Freeman)

    Australia isn’t waiting for Donald Trump to assume office in January before recalibrating its foreign relations.

    The island nation — America’s most reliable ally in the Pacific — has thrown its support behind Chinese trade initiatives now that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) appears dead.

    Steven Ciobo, Australia’s trade minister, told the Financial Times he would work to conclude new trade pacts with other countries in the region, including China’s proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

    “Any move that reduces barriers to trade and helps us facilitate trade, facilitate exports and drive economic growth and employment is a step in the right direction,” Ciobo said.

    But there is a strategic component to this as well. (more…)

  • American Leadership in Pacific at Stake If Trump Cancels Trade Pact

    Barack Obama Park Geun-hye
    Presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Park Geun-hye of South Korea walk in the garden of the Blue House in Seoul, April 25, 2014 (White House/Pete Souza)

    One of the first victims of Donald Trump’s election victory in the United States could be the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a comprehensive trade agreement that the outgoing president, Barack Obama, had hoped to enact in the waning days of his administration.

    Many Republicans in the Senate, and quite a few Democrats, support free trade in principle and understand the strategic value of the pact.

    But they may balk at ratifying the treaty now that Trump, who campaigned explicitly on an anti-trade platform, is two months away from the presidency. (more…)

  • America, Japan Seen to Be Making Progress in Pacific Trade Talks

    When President Barack Obama departed Japan last week, on the first leg of a four country Asian tour that will also take him to Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea, the headlines were that he had failed to reach a trade accord with Tokyo. The sticking point of agricultural subsidies, which have always been the major stumbling block, halted progress on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership. But American and Japanese negotiators are actually said to be making real progress on this issue with the outlines of a compromise taking shape.

    If Japan and the United states come to a bilateral agreement as a prelude to broader negotiations among the participants in the Trans Pacific Partnership, it would constitute a significant development for the region and global trade. It would also give Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, his third economic reform “arrow” to stimulate the island nation’s economy and Obama a diplomatic victory as well as renewed momentum for his Asia pivot.

    In addition, the United States will have provided an alternative to the supposed “Beijing Consensus,” the state centered economic model championed by China’s rise that many observers in Asia predicted would gain in popularity at the expense of free markets. (more…)

  • Abe Challenges Domestic Interests, Enters Trade Talks

    Fear of falling behind has a funny way of focusing the mind sometimes. Policy choices once seen as toxic become increasingly palatable to leaders when they are considered against national security. So it goes for Japan as it seeks to maintain its position in Asia and finally kickstart its perennially stalled economy in the face of a rapidly growing China.

    Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced on Friday that Japan will be joining talks to become part of a new free-trade area in the Pacific led by the United States. If Japan succeeds in joining the trade pact, it would be nothing short of a sea change for the Asian country’s domestic policy because it will need to structurally reform its economy and open its market to foreign competitors. (more…)

  • In Washington, Japan’s Abe Reaffirms American Alliance

    Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe met with President Barack Obama in Washington on Friday for the first time since his Liberal Democratic Party won the election in December.

    Abe arrived in the United States with strong domestic support. Some polls put his cabinet’s approval rating as high as 70 percent. This largely stems from budding enthusiasm for his economic policies and his commitment to protect Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands which China lays claim to.

    At the top of the summit agenda, according to Japanese officials, were North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program as well as the situation in East Asia, i.e., Japan’s island dispute with China. (more…)

  • As Economy Slows, Japan’s Noda Backs Free Trade Deals

    Economic data released on Monday has raised fears of Japan falling into recession again. It would be the Asian country’s third since 2008.

    Prior to the release, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that he planned to pursue passage of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multilateral free-trade pact between American and Asian nations, as well as a free-trade agreement with neighboring China and South Korea.

    Noda’s support of these trade deals is speculated to be a last-ditch effort to lift the ruling Democratic Party of Japan’s sagging public approval ratings before calling lower house elections in December. He would then be able to follow through on his pledge to the opposition Liberal Democratic Party of calling elections “soon” as well as hope to generate some enthusiasm from the public. (more…)