{"id":287410,"date":"2017-01-23T18:14:56","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=287410"},"modified":"2017-01-23T18:14:56","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:14:56","slug":"trump-executive-order-pulls-out-of-tpp-trade-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/01\/trump-executive-order-pulls-out-of-tpp-trade-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump executive order pulls out of TPP trade deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump has fulfilled a campaign pledge by signing an executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).<\/p>\n
The trade deal, a linchpin of ex-President Barack Obama’s Asia policy, was signed by 12 nations.<\/p>\n
“Great thing for the American worker what we just did,” said Mr Trump as he dumped the pact with a stroke of a pen.<\/p>\n
He also cut funding for international groups that provide abortions, and freeze hiring of some federal workers.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump’s executive order on TPP is seen as mainly symbolic since the deal was never ratified by a divided US Congress.<\/p>\n
During his presidential campaign, he criticized the accord as a “potential disaster for our country”, arguing it harmed US manufacturing.<\/p>\n
What is the TPP?<\/strong><\/p>\n \uf0a7The trade deal, which covered 40% of the world’s economy, was negotiated in 2015 by nations including the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico<\/p>\n \uf0a7TPP’s stated aim was to strengthen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs<\/p>\n \uf0a7It included measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections<\/p>\n \uf0a7The agreement, backed heavily by US business, was designed to potentially create a new single market likened to the EU<\/p>\n \uf0a7Critics argued it was a not-so-secret gambit to box in China, which is not part of the agreement<\/p>\n What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Trump administration’s first weekday began with a flurry of executive orders, which allow the president to bypass Congress by issuing legally binding directions to federal agencies to take action on anything from White House decorations to foreign policy.<\/p>\n Mr Trump signed an executive order blocking foreign aid or federal funding for any nongovernmental organisation that provides abortions abroad. It is typically rescinded by incoming Democratic presidents, including Barack Obama in 2009, and reinstated by Republican presidents.<\/p>\n The president also signed an executive action placing a hiring freeze on non-military federal workers.<\/p>\n Also on Monday morning, Mr Trump pledged to “massively” cut regulations and taxes on companies, but impose “a very major border tax” if they move factories outside the US.<\/p>\n “All you have to do is stay,” he told executives from 12 companies including Lockheed Martin, Under Armour, Whirlpool, Tesla and Johnson & Johnson.<\/p>\n After meeting the business leaders at the White House, Mr Trump pledged to lower corporate taxes to 15% or 20%, from the current 35%, and slash regulations by up to 75% if they keep jobs in the US.<\/p>\n “A company that wants to fire all of its people in the United States, and build some factory someplace else, and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the United States – that’s not going to happen,” he said.<\/p>\n Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris told reporters afterwards he would take the president at his word.<\/p>\n “He’s not going to do anything to harm competitiveness,” said Mr Liveris. “He’s going to actually make us all more competitive.”<\/p>\n Mr Trump is due to meet labour leaders in the afternoon.<\/p>\n Since winning the White House, he has upbraided US companies that have moved factories overseas.<\/p>\n
\nThe so-called Mexico City policy was first established by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1984.<\/p>\n