The Trans-Pacific Partnership was a would-be trade deal between the United States and other Pacific nations premised, by the Obama administration, as a way to bend regional trade toward U.S. interests while tempering China's rising economic clout. It was not widely popular, primarily due on the left to inclusion of multiple proposed clauses that seemed over-generous to American corporate interests at the expense of environmental, consumer and other concerns, and on the right due to the belief that past incarnations of trade acts bear responsibility for hastening the hollowing-out of American manufacturing jobs; after Trump was elected he ostentatiously killed it off as part of his other countries are screwing us rhetoric. He's shown zero interest since.
But the talks went on, and in the United States' absence have found a new purpose. Rather than a trade agreement aimed at curtailing China's protectionism and trade barriers, the eleven remaining nations see it as a way to protect themselves against the ever-unpredictable Donald Trump.
The United States has “gone from being a leader to actually being the No. 1 antagonist and No. 1 source of fear,” said Jeffrey Wilson, the head of research at Perth U.S.-Asia Center at the University of Western Australia. “If you’re a trade policy maker in Asia, your No. 1 fear is that Trump is going to take a swing at you.” [..]
The new agreement — known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — drops tariffs drastically and establishes sweeping new trade rules in markets that represent about a seventh of the world’s economy. It opens more markets to free trade in agricultural products and digital services around the region. While American beef faces 38.5 percent tariffs in Japan, for example, beef from Australia, New Zealand and Canada will not.
It's not clear how much clout those nations will have if Trumpism turns into an all-out trade war. But they will have some, and now that the United States is out of the picture, China has been making some noises about joining the pact itself. This may be posturing, or it may not be.
As for American involvement, it's neither alive nor dead. It's just, in this period in which the Trump team has distanced itself from having identifiable "policies" on things, in a holding pattern. It may be revisited after Trump leaves office. Or, for all we know, next Tuesday.
In the deal signed on Thursday, only 22 of more than 600 original provisions have been suspended, relating to intellectual property protection and a grab bag of other issues, several of which had been pushed by the United States. Kazuyoshi Umemoto, Japan’s chief negotiator for the partnership, said that if the United States decided to re-enter the deal, those provisions could be reinstated.