Under the banner of protectionism, Trump shelves the TPP, the free-trade agreement between the two shores of the Pacific. But it may be China that stands to gain.
It has not yet been a week since Donald Trump's inauguration at the White House, but it is already hard to keep up with the multiplying measures, signatures and statements. On 24 January he announced the withdrawal from the TPP, that is, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a giant trade agreement signed by twelve countries on the two shores of the Pacific.
Strongly championed by the Obama administration, which had spent a full two years of diplomatic effort on it, the TPP is one of the largest trade agreements ever concluded. Its text was signed, at the end of 2015, by twelve countries which together account for 40 per cent of global trade: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. The treaty centres on the cutting of duties and tariffs on more than 18,000 agricultural and industrial products. According to the Obama administration's estimates, this would have given fresh impetus to trade among the signatories (forecasts stood at +11 per cent). The intention was, in short, to create a single market, by simplifying copyright regulations and removing barriers to investment. There was no shortage of opposing voices, including from quarters ideologically opposed to the new president: from Bernie Sanders to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
It should be said that this was little more than a symbolic move, given that ratification by Congress — which was opposed to the agreement — was still pending. Even so, by doing this Trump honoured a promise made during the election campaign, once again confirming his iron determination to put American industry and American workers at the centre, under the banner of the protectionism that has always been his hallmark. From now on, the White House will be focused on concluding bilateral agreements with individual Asian nations — agreements in which, understandably, it will start from a position of advantage. The other side of the coin, however, is that Trump may have done a great favour to his number-one enemy: namely China, which, along with South Korea, was the only major power in the region that had been left out of the TPP. There is already speculation that Beijing could effectively step into the shoes of the US and bring the treaty back to life.
The TPP does not directly concern Europe. It should therefore not be confused with the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), the free-trade agreement that the United States and the European Union negotiated, largely in secret, for more than three years — and which, even before Trump's inauguration, was considered practically dead, owing to the apparently irreconcilable positions on the two sides of the Atlantic. The hundreds of thousands of people — environmentalists, human rights activists, trade unions and so on — who took to the streets repeatedly last year against an agreement that, in their view, would have dangerously shifted the balance of power in favour of multinationals, can therefore breathe a sigh of relief. At the same time, it would have opened the door in Europe to products currently banned, such as glyphosate and GMOs.
On the first day of his term, Donald Trump immediately signed an executive order to put a brake on the implementation of Obamacare. In the meantime, the pages on the White House website dedicated to climate change and LGBT rights disappeared without warning.
On the energy front, the blow came on 24 January, when he officially revived the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, enormous projects that Obama had halted, siding with environmentalists and Native American communities. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been silent for several days, having received orders not to communicate via its institutional website, press releases or social media.
On this Wednesday, 25 January, another awaited — and feared — confirmation: the wall between the United States and Mexico will be built. It is not inconceivable that this issue is also being discussed at today's meeting between the US administration and a delegation from the Mexican government, at which NAFTA — the free-trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the US, which the new president deeply opposes — will be on the agenda.
