US President Donald Trump moved Monday Jan 23,2017 to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, making good on a pledge to scrap a deal he denounced as a "job killer" and a "rape" of US interests.
Embarking on his first full week in office, the 45th US president began rolling out his policy agenda after a tumultuous first weekend for his administration by signing a series of executive orders.
Among the first was a memo on withdrawing from the vast TPP trade pact, which aimed to set trade rules for the 21st century and bind US allies against growing Chinese economic clout.
"We've been talking about this for a long time," Trump said as he signed the executive order in the Oval Office.
"Great thing for the American worker what we just did."
Promoted by Washington and signed by 12 countries in 2015, the TPP had yet to go into effect and US withdrawal is likely to sound its death knell.
What is the TPP?
- The 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
- TPP's stated aim was to strengthen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs
- It included measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections
- The agreement, backed heavily by US business, was designed to potentially create a new single market likened to the EU
- Critics argued it was a not-so-secret gambit to box in China, which is not part of the agreement
Its signatories - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Brunei - together represent 40 percent of the world economy.
Note
US President Donald Trump also signed two other orders, on freezing the hiring of federal workers and hitting foreign NGOs that help with abortion.
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