Trump weighs rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership amid trade dispute with China

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

President Trump told top administration officials Thursday to look at rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the multination trade agreement he pulled the United States out of shortly after taking office.

Rejoining the pact would be a major reversal as Trump escalates a trade conflict with China. The 11-nation Pacific rim trade deal was intended by the Obama administration as a way to counter China's influence, but Trump criticized the pact as a candidate and pulled the United States out of the pact in early 2017.

Trump gave the new orders to U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow during a meeting with lawmakers and governors on trade issues, according to two GOP senators in attendance.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said that he and others at the table raised the point that if you really want to get China's attention, one way to do it is start doing business with all the people they're doing business with in the region: their competitors.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-weighs-rejoining-trans-pacific-partnership/2018/04/12/37d59500-3e71-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html

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So is that (Thune) who he "talked to last"?

(ETA, someone else will tell him "Obama TPP" and he'll change his mind )

[bucolic_frolic]

1. When I was a kid

they were always threatening to send me on a slow boat to China

I didn't really understand what they were talking about

but I hope it's still ready to sail them an orange

[BumRushDaShow]

3. But we also heard this

[greatauntoftriplets]

6. When I was a little girl, I kept digging a hole in the back yard trying to get to China.

My parents made me stop because they weren't very happy with the hole. So when I was an adult and China opened up to Western tourism, I went there. Being there and walking through the streets with ordinary Chinese is far different from when Spanky went last year and spent his time in a bubble created by Xi Jinping.

LOL, I didn't go to Taiwan.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. You weren't the only one hole-digging!

One of my mother's friends did the same trip back in the early '70s (she was in the "Century Club", traveling to 100+ countries). One of my sisters has been there 3 times (for work) and brought back all sorts of cool things. One thing for sure though, you go nowhere there "unescorted"! They don't play.

[greatauntoftriplets]

11. I was part of a tour group because individual travel wasn't allowed at the time.

That didn't stop me from exploring on my own during the "free time". People would actually crane their necks at the Westerner walking down the street. Plus, I'm tall. At least the tour group was blessedly small, except for that one woman. My trip was in 1982.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. I know you had fun too!

Nothing like traveling!!!

[greatauntoftriplets]

13. I did!

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Who told Americans that China is where they'd end up if they dug straight down?

It's the Indian Ocean that's actually on the "other side of the world" to the USA. You might say "Indonesia" (opposite the east coast, roughly, though the west coast of Australia may be a better fit), Madagascar (the west coast) or, at a push, India (near the equator, but still in the northern hemisphere, so not that accurate, even for Texas). But China is way out. It's the other side of the world from the south of South America.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Here is an interesting article speculating on the origin

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-hole-truth-about-why-we-dig-to-china

Despite the odd assertion, it was a concept that "went viral" early in the 20th century and eventually ended up in dozens of cartoons and other "popular culture" as a euphemism, and that was that.

[unblock]

2. best negotiator ever.

cry and stomp out, then when no one comes begging for you to come back, you crawl back and beg to be let back in, and act as if your childish display was something brilliant.


his staggering incompetence is probably what saves him from being the worse president ever. that and the dumb luck that there's no depression or civil war looming, at least not obviously yet....

[christx30]

16. And dont forget his supporters,

who were complaining when Obama was negotiating the accord, and cheered when Trump pulled out of it, now saying that going back to TPP is the right thing to do.

[politicaljunkie41910]

4. All talk and no substance. This guy is an embarassment. Serves him right if they said NO.

[Tobin S.]

5. I once heard that a main reason why these trade pacts are pursued

is the notion that trading partners tend not to go to war with each other. In other words, global capitalist trade policy can be an effective tool in promoting world peace. We have members of both political major American parties who are in favor of lowering trade barriers. I think Nixon and Bill Clinton were instrumental in the economic changes that took place in China that have opened that nation up to capitalist trade and development. And of course we have the NAFTA agreement which came into being under Bill Clinton.

The United states currently has free trade agreements with 20 countries, including all of Central America and parts of the Middle East, South America, and Asia.

https://www.trade.gov/fta/

[Still In Wisconsin]

8. The current members of TPP should tell him to pound sand. n/t

[Trust Buster]

9. He will probably demand some irrelevant adjustment to TPP and then claim victory.

His deplorable followers will parrot his worthless talking points. Just a wild frickin’ guess.

[TranssexualKaren]

10. For whatever its worth

Cancelling TPP was the one thing Trump did that I actually liked, now I don’t even have that