During his campaign, Donald Trump said he wanted to get out of the TPP and certainly followed through. He doesn’t think it’s a good deal. He thinks he can do better. He also thinks “America First” means ‘America Only’ and putting us on an island. We’ve not done well internationally when we’ve abandoned other countries. He talked about leaving NATO, as well. Not good.
A little background on TPP: The Trans-Pacific Partnership was supposed to be the most expansive free-trade agreement, stretching from Chile to Vietnam and including smaller nations like Brunei and larger nations like Australia. It also covers several crucial industries like telecom, tech, financial services, and labor-intensive textile industries. It also set commitments to environmental standards and the extremely important intellectual property standards. In competition with China and especially their RCEP agreement with ASEAN nations, which includes several would-be would’ve-been TPP members, the TPP would’ve been very formidable as an opposing force in Asia, broadly uplifting for countries like Vietnam, and modernizing for certain key industries in more developed or advanced developing countries. Instead, Trump backed out.
Historically, the evolution of similar agreements started with contiguous nations. They were trade blocs. The member countries bordered each other. They looked more like the RCEP but with fewer nations. These agreements have evolved as more countries ratified international standards and more countries have become industrially similar. Thus, we were able to form a monumental agreement stretching across continents and oceans. However, most Americans on both sides of the aisle are against it. Even Hillary was for it and then switched being against it when polls showed even Democrats didn’t want it. We’re disillusioned about trade agreements even if we’re not against international trade. However, the reality and the complex math behind the reality, as well as the competitiveness of trade agreements when you consider where we stand competitively at the moment internationally and what happens if we don’t continue to pursue TPP and others, is unknown to most. That’s no insult to anyone. The arithmetic isn’t hard. The partial differential equations are a foreign language to most Americans. Still, the economic theory, if understood conceptually, is still complex enough to prohibit most from arriving at results that a Ph.D. in Trade Economics would find in his or her research. Thus, it’s hard to gain support for such an agreement when the country is suffering economically compared to decades past and when the thought is that the international community is getting more hostile so why join it? In reality, we need to join it more when it’s filled with more hostility. Otherwise, we’re not there and only the hostile actors are there.
Aside: I tell everyone, “If you’re a Democrat and you don’t want Texas to vote Republican, DON’T LEAVE TEXAS! Vote there as a Democrat. Moving to New York won’t do anything more in the Electoral College than it’s already doing. Same here. We need to be involved in combatting poor and/or illegal trade practices, labor abuses and human rights violations, and corruption. We can’t do that if we’re not involved. If international trade was fun when we were in charge, then now it’s dangerous if there is a perceived obstacle. However, we need to get over that. TPP is also a defensive tactic, and we need to understand what happens to the economic pressures and vulnerabilities not entering the TPP creates. There is a huge competitor out there. China is very eager to go wherever we’ve left or refuse to go, and there’s already been progress made via the RCEP to visualize economic potential for countries that were slated to be in both RCEP and TPP. They’re predicted to improve, and one has to wonder what abusive political and security measures are attached and what unspoken strings attached come along with China-led RCEP as well as possible loans from AIIB. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is China’s defense against the IMF. The TPP was supposed to be a defense against China, and we didn’t do it. Trade, for us, was to spread our good governance. For China, trade is defense, and if we lose the dominant position, we’ll have to be play defense. Do you want that? Or are you ready to fight? We’ve gotta start considering that being #1 is god-given or a birthright. It was earned a long time ago but must be maintained.
One of the countries set to grow regardless of the TPP is Vietnam. Their allegiance to the United States, despite also only being in the RCEP is strong. Politically, there are some issues, but there is nothing to indicate that Vietnam would choose to align with China as a zero-sum exchange of allegiance from the United States to China. In fact, Vietnam seems to be employing a miniature version of though a less abusive but still calculating Chinese methodology of hedging by being, or attempting to be, part of agreements led by two rivaling nations (TPP and RCEP). They have also been reticent to publically denounce either of those nations, only superficially or privately expressing support for either one. Therefore, there’s less trust in what Vietnam will do. Regardless, the Vietnamese economy is squarely aligned for double-digit and longer-term economic growth. Even China has discussed the “unthinkable” action of bringing labor from Vietnam to Chinese provinces as wages of Chinese laborers keep rising.
That probably won’t happen.
Instead, the jobs will probably leave China, jobs in textiles for one. Others, in the TPP, could have been electronics, but now we’ll have to see. It’s still likely. This is why China will push back via RCEP covenants and AIIB strings attached that, quite simply, state that no allegiance to the United States will be tolerated and that such publically stated allegiance or denouncement of, among other things, human rights violations in China and other Chinese abuse will trigger early payments or other withdrawals of AIIB and Chinese support. Don’t question whether China will threaten broader economic boycotts and even military disruptions. Questions whether they’ll do it and spend a moderate amount of time gaming out how that’d look, but don’t question the threats. They do that all over the world.
Nevertheless, Vietnam is the bet to be made if you’re interested in going heavy on FDI, infrastructure projects in the middle of the country, sovereign debt, and textiles. They also have apparently quite a few untapped mineral deposits.
Bare in mind Australia, New Zealand, and Japan are also ‘hedging,’ as I’ve chosen to call it, by choosing to be members of both TPP and RCEP. However, there’s no concern about their economic, political, or military/strategic alignment with the West. Vietnam should be fine, as well, but we need to continue to support and even more so now due to their RCEP membership and what leverages that gives China and what isolative forces and insulative properties that gives them via ASEAN. In other words, they may choose to focus on regional partnerships with Cambodia et al while thus temporarily taking fewer calls from the U.S., and we don’t want to lose them for even a day.
The TPP would have also been crucial to keeping China at bay in the South China Sea. With more and more trade, now that $5 TRILLION going through the SCS, it’s clear China can control it, and a common military theory is that they would simply blockade it, shut it down, as an offensive when ready or a defensive if they feel very threatened. This would amount to a significant disruption that would be a nuisance militarily but a blow torch to the world economy. With countries both in RCEP and TPP choosing their political future and almost certainly tying that to their economic future, it would be a blow to China if they did something to threaten RCEP membership. Therefore, they’d be unable to harm TPP countries since key members are in the RCEP, as well. Without membership in TPP, it’s clear China can control both their land periphery and their maritime supremacy in areas where the South China Sea borders both China and RCEP members. Again, Vietnam seems to be dominating on the ASEAN stage as well as, with or without TPP, the Oceania and Indochina stages.China would love to leave it that way and push the U.S. military further out of Asia, but so far, that’s not happening. Economically, however, they can severely sever the world from China if the world won’t stop swarming its maritime borders. Frankly, they’re trying to create a situation where we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. That’s a very similar situation going on with NK right now. No matter what we do, the risk to SK, Japan, and other factors and how it could spiral is exactly the kind of risk that NK wants to back us into, and China has a very similar war strategy that just happens to be much more encompassing, incredibly patient, and frankly not operable until they chip away at the enemy a lot more. However, they do seek total domination, and we ought to be aware of this as a culture because, despite one billion Chinese liking the United States, the few million in charge of the Chinese government, its businesses, military branches, and other connections are intensely against us and any coexistence with us.
China would love to leave it that way and push the U.S. military further out of Asia, but so far, that’s not happening. Economically, however, they can severely sever the world from China if the world won’t stop swarming its maritime borders. Frankly, they’re trying to create a situation where we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. That’s a very similar situation going on with NK right now. No matter what we do, the risk to SK, Japan, and other factors and how it could spiral is exactly the kind of risk that NK wants to back us into, and China has a very similar war strategy that just happens to be much more encompassing, incredibly patient, and frankly not operable until they chip away at the enemy a lot more. However, they do seek total domination, and we ought to be aware of this as a culture because, despite one billion Chinese liking the United States, the few million in charge of the Chinese government, its businesses, military branches, and other connections are intensely against us and any coexistence with us.
However, these years in America see a population totally against these trade agreements. The job losses we’ve suffered are immense, and the individuals affected amount to millions of Americans. They voted for Trump to save their livelihood. I don’t think they see the full connectivity of the world and that that’s how international trade has affected them, but they do see what’s happened to their wallets, their pensions, their homes, their kid’s educational opportunities, and their abilities to pay medical bills when they’re sick, and they’re far more than just tired of it. They’re violently turning inward and resenting any interactions with other countries. Therefore, at the moment, TPP is gone. Trump has changed course so often, I’m not sure he has a clue what he’s doing. In fact, I’m very sure he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. However, I’m also very sure that he thinks he knows what he’s doing and that it’s a good idea. So, TPP is likely gone for a very long time. What we do in the meantime is (apparently not a problem because North Korea will turn us to ashes——just kidding) unknown, and I just hope Trump doesn’t withdraw further from economic partnerships.
My conclusion is that the TPP is an absolutely crucial piece of foreign policy that we need. It’s over. It’s not coming back at least for a long time, but we need it. I conclude that China will take more control of RCEP countries in the meantime, though they will politically align with the United States for the foreseeable future and wish that we’d rescue them from any political obligations tied to economic assistance from China. They’ll wait a long time before giving up on the hope that we’ll rescue them. I also conclude that, with respect to TPP, jobs will not flee the United States at a rate faster than if TPP was implemented. In that regard, this is a good thing. However, it’s very clear that net job loss will increase over time and for a while. TPP was not the one issue that would cause job losses. So, TPP could have only been good and, among other things, be responsible for only a portion of our problems and, therefore, should have been implemented because, simply, we’re already suffering, TPP would make us suffer an amount we can absorb because the suffering is comparably rather small. We should have done it, but it’s high profile made it the unintentional straw man. We’ve knocked it down and out of existence, but that’s not going to change things. We should have framed it as a foreign policy defense. I can’t stress that enough. Instead, it was only about jobs when it was so much more than that.
So what can we do now that TPP is gone? How should we feel about it?
I think the best option to start out to look at where we’re at and where we’ll be in terms of global positioning with or without TPP. When you figure out the position you’ll be in, think about what else would put you in that same position irrespective of TPP and what percentage of that outcome would still happen even if we don’t have TPP.
Next, I think we should think about our role in the world. We’re helpers. We help everyone. We’re suffering now and need some help, but what happens if we don’t help other countries anymore? When you take that away from those other countries, will they side with someone else? What position will that put us in, and would that position be better or worse than if we’d just absorbed the negatives as well as the positives of TPP?
Finally, if you think TPP is bad, you should ensure that, hearing any whiff of it, you contact your Congressperson and vehemently boycott TPP and tie it to any reelection potential of that Congressperson.
If you support TPP, you need to do so much more. You need to rally together. You need to tell Trump that we understand the risks to ourselves and that we still want TPP because, in the long-run, we’ll be worse off without it. We’ll need to campaign for TPP at a time when it’s politically impossible to do so. You’ll need to show your support. You’ll need to let your Congressperson know about your push to reawaken support for TPP and hope that they know how to discuss it with other Congresspeople it without losing political capital. There are plenty of people still supporting it but doing so in the weeds and underground because it’s political suicide right now. Maybe if we get term limits, we’ll get more people who will think long-term because, in the short-term, some of them can’t be reelected anyway. We also need to reach out to the other countries and let them know that we support them and that TPP should exist. We need them to know that we do want TPP, that we haven’t emotionally abandoned them, and that there are just enough people here to temporarily overpower us but that we’ll be back and have never stopped thinking about them. It’s crucial for foreign policy that these individual, social media, small business, non-profit and for-profit relationships are maintained, strengthened, and at the forefront of what decisions these countries make so they don’t start partnering with other countries to our exclusion. We won’t get them back if we don’t do this.
One international initiative we can support is #MakeInIndia. We can also tell our Congresspeople to sanction China or incentivize relocation of U.S. businesses out of China and into other countries. We can start creating business partnerships with countries that compete with China, like Vietnam, the Philippines, and others both vulnerable to economic influence and perhaps a little worried that we’re not supporting them enough.
Finally, we need to be strong. We need to understand that forces outside the United States have put us in a compromised position where we’re considering compromising foreign policy positions that ensure strong alliances in favor of focusing on domestic issues. We’ve been hurt. We need to understand that this is temporary and that, until those forces have been checked, they’ll continue. We need to understand that we can absorb some more suffering while we counter their abuse. We need to realize, when you’re down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and there’s no more Gatorade and no more timeouts and you’re so tired, that we can still do it. Maybe go watch 300 or something. That ought to inspire you. Haha. We all know what needs to be done. We just have to strong enough to support what we know is right and to do so with reckless abandon, to work for it until we pass out, and realize that we’ll get there. We will. Our way of life has, at least partially, been used against us by forces outside the United States that want to wipe us off the map, but we will prevail as long as we keep chipping away at it.