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Trump withdraws from Trans-Pacific Partnership amid flurry of orders Trump withdraws from Trans-Pacific Partnership amid flurry of orders
(35 minutes later)
Donald Trump has begun his effort to dismantle Barack Obama’s legacy, formally scrapping a flagship trade deal with 11 countries in the Pacific rim.Donald Trump has begun his effort to dismantle Barack Obama’s legacy, formally scrapping a flagship trade deal with 11 countries in the Pacific rim.
The new president also reinstated a ban on providing federal money to international groups that perform abortions, as he set out a series of new policy decisions. The new president also signed executive orders to ban funding for international groups that provide abortions, and placing a hiring freeze on non-military federal workers.
The move to leave the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was basically a formality, since the agreement had yet to receive required Senate ratification. Trade experts say that approval was unlikely to happen given voters’ anxiety about trade deals and the potential for job losses. Trump’s decision not to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) came as little surprise. During his election campaign he railed against international trade deals, blaming them for job losses and focusing anger in the industrial heartland. Obama had argued that this deal would provide an effective counterweight to China in the region.
Trump called the move “a great thing for the American workers”. “Everyone knows what that means, right?” Trump said at Monday’s signing ceremony in the White House. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time. It’s a great thing for the American worker.”
It remains unclear if Trump would seek individual deals with the 11 other nations in TPP, a group that represents roughly 13.5% of the global economy, according to World Bank figures. The TPP was never ratified by the Republican-controlled Congress, but several Asian leaders had invested substantial political capital in it. Their countries represent roughly 13.5% of the global economy, according to the World Bank.
Trump has blamed past trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization for a decline in US factory jobs. Trump’s election opponent, the Democrat Hillary Clinton, had also spoken out against the TPP.
The new president also reinstated a ban on providing federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option. The move also intensified speculation over the future of the 17-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). There were reports that Trump would sign an executive order on Monday to begin renegotiating terms with Canada and Mexico.
The regulation has been something of a political football, instituted by Republican administrations and rescinded by Democratic ones since 1984. Most recently, Barack Obama ended the ban in 2009. He did move to reinstate a ban on providing federal money to international non-government organizations that perform abortions or provide information about them. The policy also prohibits taxpayer funding for groups that lobby to legalize abortion or promote it as a family planning method.
Trump signed it one day after the 22 January anniversary of the US supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion, the date which is traditionally when presidents take action on the policy. Republican administrations have tended to institute such a ban while Democrats have reversed it, most recently President Obama in 2009.
The policy also prohibits taxpayer funding for groups that lobby to legalize abortion or promote it as a family planning method. Trump signed it one day after the anniversary of the supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion in the US. Activists fear that the precedent is now under threat.
Trump also signed a memorandum that freezes hiring for some federal government workers as a way to reduce payrolls and rein in the size of the federal workforce. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic minority leader in the Senate, said: “Now, foreign non-governmental organisations will be forced to give women incomplete medical information, advice and care in order to participate in US-supported programs abroad. When last in place, the global gag rule had the effect of decreasing access to family planning services around the world. Study after study shows that when women have increased access to family planning services and supplies, such as contraceptives, the incidence of abortion decreases.
Trump’s directive was intended to fulfil one of his campaign promises. He told reporters that members of the military would be exempted from the hiring freeze. “No US funds can be or have been used to perform or promote abortion services overseas since 1973. The fact is that President Trump’s shameful decision to reinstate the global gag rule will cause more unintended pregnancies, more maternal complications and injuries, less information about HIV/ AIDS prevention and treatment and more – not fewer – abortions.”
The new president has vowed to take on the federal bureaucracy, and the action could be the first step in an attempt to curtail government employment. Republican Representative Michael Burgess, who chairsthe House’s health subcommittee, welcomed the move. “Life is a precious and sacred gift, and we must do all we can to protect it,” he said. “I applaud President Trump for taking this important action and look forward to continuing to work together in advancing pro-life policies and protecting taxpayer dollars.”
The memorandum signed by Trump’s is similar to one that George W Bush signed at the start of his administration in 2001. Earlier, Trump met a group of top business leaders including Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, and the executives from Dell, Johnson & Johnson and Lockheed Martin. He set out plans to cut regulations for businesses in the US and slash the company tax rate from 35% “down to anywhere from 15 to 20%”.
Republican House speaker Paul Ryan issued a statement applauding President Trump’s first executive actions. “President Trump is wasting no time acting on his promises,” he said. “Already, he has laid the groundwork to protect Americans struggling under Obamacare. He has renewed President Reagan’s policy to ensure American taxpayers are not forced to subsidize abortions anywhere in the world. He has followed through on his promise to insist on better trade agreements. “We want to bring manufacturing back to our country,” the president said. “It’s one of the reasons I’m sitting here instead of somebody else sitting here.”
He added: “We want to start making our products again. We don’t want to bring them in; we want to make them here. That doesn’t mean we don’t trade because we do trade, but we want to make our products here.
“If you look at some of the original great people that ran this country, you will see that they felt very strongly about that.”
He said companies that moved factories out of the US and then tried to sell their products back to America would be punished with a “very major border tax”.
Since winning last November’s election, Trump has singled out and threatened to impose tariffs on US companies that move production to Mexico. Trump has been accused of hypocrisy because many of his business’s own products are manufactured overseas.
On Monday, he promised: “There will be advantages to companies that do indeed make their products here. It’s going to be a wave. You watch, it’s going to be a wave.”
Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical, told the Associated Press that Trump had given them 30 days to come up with a plan to help stimulate the US manufacturing sector.
In his bleak inaugural address on Friday, Trump described “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation” and pledged to boost US industries over those abroad. Critics argue that some trends, such as the automation of factories, are irreversible.
As his new administration continued its breakneck speed, Trump was schedule to speak with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, on Monday.
The new president has a meeting with union leaders and workers in the afternoon, followed by a reception with members of Congress and a meeting with the House speaker, Paul Ryan. His controversial press secretary, Sean Spicer, will also hold a media briefing.
A Senate committee is set to vote on Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, the former head of ExxonMobil. Marco Rubio, a senator for Florida who had clashed with Tillerson at a committee hearing earlier this month, said on Monday: “Despite my reservations, I will support Mr Tillerson’s nomination in committee and in the full Senate,” making it likely the nomination will pass.
The White House is seeking to recover from a rocky opening weekend in which Trump was criticised for using a CIA appearance to boast about his inauguration crowds and attack the media, and Spicer presented false information at his first press briefing.
Ryan issued a statement applauding Trump’s first executive actions. “President Trump is wasting no time acting on his promises,” he said. “Already, he has laid the groundwork to protect Americans struggling under Obamacare. He has renewed President Reagan’s policy to ensure American taxpayers are not forced to subsidize abortions anywhere in the world. He has followed through on his promise to insist on better trade agreements.
“And by instituting a hiring freeze, he has taken a critical first step toward reining in Washington bureaucracy. We look forward to working with the president to build on these actions and deliver results for the people.”“And by instituting a hiring freeze, he has taken a critical first step toward reining in Washington bureaucracy. We look forward to working with the president to build on these actions and deliver results for the people.”
Ryan was a vocal advocate of the TPP, lending the trade pact support from the highest-ranking Republican in the nation under President Obama. But he later accused the administration of negotiating an agreement that lacked sufficient support from members of Congress, while explaining his decision not to bring the TPP up for a vote in the lame-duck session prior to Obama’s departure from the White House. Ryan was a vocal advocate of the TPP, lending the trade pact support from the highest-ranking Republican in the nation under Obama. But he later accused the administration of negotiating an agreement that lacked sufficient support from members of Congress, while explaining his decision not to bring the TPP up for a vote in the lame-duck session prior to Obama’s departure from the White House.
More details soon ... But some Republicans criticised Trump’s move to formally withdraw from the TPP. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, described it as a “serious mistake” with long-term consequences. “This decision will forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade barriers, open new markets, and protect American invention and innovation,” he said.
“It will create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road at the expense of American workers. And it will send a troubling signal of American disengagement in the Asia-Pacific region at a time we can least afford it.”
Like Trump, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders had attacked TPP on the campaign trail, and on Monday he praised Trump’s decision, saying TPP is “dead and gone”.
“Now is the time to develop a new trade policy that helps working families, not just multinational corporations,” Sanders said in a statement. “If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers then I would be delighted to work with him.
“For the past 30 years, we have had a series of trade deals … which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs and caused a ‘race to the bottom’ which has lowered wages for American workers,” he said.
Daniel Ikenson, director of the Herbert A Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, said the US was now becoming “more protectionist than at any point since the Hoover administration”.
Additional reporting by Sabrina Siddiqui and Dominic Rushe