In sinking the TPP, Trump cuts a lifeline for America

United States President Donald Trump has kept his campaign pledge to pull his country out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, an abrupt action formalised in one of the first executive orders he signed on Monday, his first day in the Oval Office. It was a bold, unprecedented and retrograde move in our age of increasing global connectivity and trade. To see the US – so long the world’s leader in championing free trade and multilateral cooperation – make such a complete reversal was stunning, even if expected.
Under Trump, who brags about being a wily deal-maker in business, the US is expected to pursue bilateral rather than bloc agreements. It’s his preference to negotiate arrangements one on one and he feels it’s the best way to promote and protect US interests. A great many Americans agree with him.
The Barack Obama administration promoted the TPP as a holistic approach to global relations, not merely a trade deal. Obama believed – and most economists concurred – that the expansive free-trade framework would benefit all of its members’ economies. The former president also felt it would help raise international standards of governance and regulation. As such it appealed to countries like Malaysia and Vietnam, which were among the 12 nations to join the fledgling bloc.
America’s withdrawal from the TPP can only demean its creditability in the Asia-Pacific region. Trump’s move signifies to the world his arrogant contention that the US can get whatever it wants on its own terms and, if it doesn’t enjoy the game, it can depart without suffering consequences. Such an attitude will have serious ramifications for America’s role overseas. Its allies and foes will quickly adjust to his “post-truth” brinkmanship and formulate their own standards for dealing with him politically and economically.
Trump’s trenchant “American first” rhetoric is likely to destabilise a domestic economy deeply intertwined with the global system since the end of World War II. It was American financial and military clout that made his country a superpower. Its misguided armed forces have since suffered crippling setbacks and he now appears determined to damage American economic might too. Soon enough, Trump will discover that the presidency is not a TV reality show whose script is easily rewritten. Russia is wasting no time asserting its influence in the Middle East and is poised to become the first major foreign power in 70 years able to upend US global hegemony.
If the new White House administration is aware yet heedless of US dependence on the wellbeing of other nations, the American working class might yet have to learn the lesson, and it will be painful. Trump’s inaugural-speech claim that Asia has profited handsomely from American largesse is demonstrably untrue. It is one thing for a US president to focus on unemployment and other financial issues at home, and it is entirely another to blame other nations for the predicament fuelling domestic anger. To suggest the US has somehow allowed itself to be exploited economically and politically ignores the supreme position it maintains in the world.
It can only be hoped that Trump is merely cultivating popularity when he insists that America and its citizens will always come first in their dealings with the world, and that all other countries must bend to US demands. Such flag-waving does pay dividends, with several US firms already surrendering to his chastisements about investing overseas. And we hope he succeeds in boosting domestic growth further and creating a more competitive workforce. But, if his pugnacious nationalism harms foreign relations, he is more likely to squander American capital and talent. In a world left alarmed, offended and economically unstable, US interests face a dire threat as well.