Donald Trump to nix Obama trade deal on Day one

Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that the US would signal its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact on his first day in the White House, one of six immediate steps aimed at “putting America first.” The Republican billionaire — who for 10 days has been sounding out Cabinet picks at his Trump Tower offices in New York — made the pledge in a short video message.

The 70-year-old property tycoon outlined a list of priorities for his first 100 days and executive actions to be taken “on day one” — on half-a-dozen issues from trade to immigration, national security and ethics — in a push to “reform Washington and rebuild our middle class.”

“My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first,” said the President-elect, whose campaign tapped the anger of working-class Americans who feel left behind by globalisation. It singled out trade deals such as the TPP as key culprits.

“On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country,” said Mr Trump, who takes office January 20.

“Instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores,” he said.

Trans-Pacific partnership.

Both the 12-nation TPP — signed in February but not yet in force — and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement featured heavily in the brutal White House race. Mr Trump said they harmed the US economy and jobs and many see his victory as a repudiation of ever-deeper commercial ties.

Mr Trump’s populist election platform called for scuttling the TPP — President Barack Obama’s signature trade initiative which still needs approval from the Republican-dominated Congress — as well as for renegotiating Nafta.

Matthias Helble, a research economist at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo, said Mr Trump’s announcement that bilateral trade deals would replace TPP “comes at a high cost.” “The outcome of ten years of hard-fought negotiations has been jettisoned,” Mr Helble said. “The only glimmer of hope is that Trump is not fully abandoning the idea of trade opening.”

Mr Trump’s pledge to pull out of the deal was one of six points on which he promised immediate executive action — which he can take without Congressional approval. Mr Trump said he would direct the Department of Labour to investigate abuses of visa programmes “that undercut the American worker.”

On energy, he pledged to boost the oil and gas sector and bring back coal. Mr Trump also said he would ask defence officials to create plans to protect the US “from cyber-attacks and all other form of attacks.”

Sticking to his central pledge to cut government red tape, he promised “a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.”

Though his own transition team includes lobbyists, he promised “a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration.”