Tag: Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Story: On November 15, representatives of 15 Asian countries signed a trade deal that is designed to create the world's largest-ever single market, the...

Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cultivated an image of talking tough. But his trip to Saudi Arabia to discuss the disappearance of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi offered a different picture. Read the story. • Rick Scott, the Florida governor and Senate candidate, is fabulously wealthy. But Republicans have resumed hearings for more conservative judges, apparently breaking the truce. • Donald McGahn departed as White House counsel on Wednesday, ending a tumultuous tenure during which he became both a critical adviser to Mr. Trump and a chief witness against him in the special counsel investigation. Read more about his withdrawal. Read more about the reactions to the test results. • The president has raised $106 million for his re-election, leading some Republicans to wonder if the cash would be better spent on endangered congressional candidates.

Donald Trump once boasted of killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling the giant trade pact a “fraud”. Now, apparently, he wants in. During a meeting with Republican senators on Thursday, Trump reportedly asked Larry Kudlow, his national economic council chairman, and the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer to take another look at the pact – a deal he once called Republicans “stupid” for endorsing. It does not stop Japan's currency manipulation. April 22, 2015 The move runs counter to Trump’s repeatedly expressed belief that he prefers “bilateral” trade agreements – between the US and one other country – to wide-ranging pacts like TPP and the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which he has also said should be rewritten or scrapped. But at a time of increasing tensions over trade between the US and China, revising a deal he once argued was “pushed by special interests who want to rape our country” could offer the US greater leverage in negotiations with Beijing. He called it a “horrible deal” and “one of the worst trade deals”. The pact, involving 11 countries that border the Pacific Ocean but excluding China, was supposed to create a new trading bloc and foster better relations in a region that accounts for 40% of the world’s economic output. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, had also come out against TPP. If we did a substantially better deal, I would be open to TPP.”