After floating the possibility on April 12 of rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter late Tuesday that he didn’t think the deal was positive for the U.S. economy.
“While Japan and South Korea would like us to go back into TPP, I don’t like the deal for the United States,” he tweeted. “Too many contingencies and no way to get out if it doesn’t work. Bilateral deals are far more efficient, profitable and better for OUR workers. Look how bad WTO is to US.”
On April 12, Trump told a group of Republican senators during a meeting that he had deputized Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative and Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, to study the possibility of re-entering the TPP if the terms were favorable.
Withdrawing the U.S. from the the multilateral trade agreement was one of his first acts as president. Trump bragged during political rallies about killing the TPP deal because he felt the terms put the U.S. at a disadvantage in trade.
The other TPP members—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam—are negotiating their own trade agreement, without the United States.
