Dangerous strategy
TPP: What about 11 other nations?
Where Trump support, Obamacare unite
ump gets to work for his blue-collar base
Story highlights
- Trump eyes blue-collar base in Monday blitz of executive actions and media appearances
- The President says from now on US will only pursue two-way trade pacts
(CNN)This is what "America First" looks like.
President
Donald Trump is showing that he is not forgetting the blue-collar
voters who sent him to the White House, making clear during an energetic
first full weekday in office that his administration will be devoted to
US workers.
Flexing
his broad executive powers for the first time on the economy, Trump
formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade deal that was the centerpiece of the Obama administration's Asia
strategy.
He
also gave notice that he hopes to get a better deal for American
workers by renegotiating the North America Free Trade Agreement with
Canada and Mexico. The President put a bug in the ear of business
executives, warning in a meeting they would face huge tariffs if they
send manufacturing abroad. And he huddled with union leaders, promising a
torrent of new jobs and factories.
Tuesday, the President will meet with the heads of the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler.
"We
are going to put a lot of people back to work. We are going to use
common sense and we are going to do it the way it is supposed to be
done," Trump said Monday.
Trump's
moves also reversed the bipartisan orthodoxy advanced by successive
presidents that has viewed US interests as best served by spreading
American-style trade across the globe through large multilateral trade
agreements. From now on, Trump said, the US will seek bilateral deals
that will most of all benefit Americans and be quickly terminated if US
partners cheat.
His action quickly
scrambled political lines in Washington, as he set himself against large
sections of his own Republican Party and consolidated his position on
economic territory long occupied by Democrats.
Trump's
vow to kill or renegotiate multilateral trade deals was an important
factor in his narrow November election victories in industrialized
states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which upended the
political map based on the votes of many workers -- including Democrats
-- who feel left behind by economic globalization.
Monday's
moves offered a first glimpse of the "America First" principle that the
President said in his inaugural address on Friday would now undergird
every decision on foreign, economic and trade policy.
Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump was deeply preoccupied with the lives of people who helped him win last November.
"I
think that's where his head's at, is trying to look at those people
that come to his rallies, that have come to his events, that he's met
with in person that are struggling and say 'Mr. Trump, I'm working as
hard as I can. I'm working two jobs, I'm doing everything by the rules,
and I keep getting screwed.'"
"That's what he's fighting for," Spicer said.
Democrats on notice
Trump's
success in transcending party lines -- at least for now -- was evident
in an approving statement about his TPP move from the AFL-CIO, the
powerhouse union that endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for President
last year.
"Today's announcement
that the US is withdrawing from TPP and seeking a reopening of NAFTA is
an important first step toward a trade policy that works for working
people," said AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka.
In
a political sense, Trump's busy first weekday in office also put
Democrats on the back foot. He used the power and visibility of the
presidency to impress his midwestern base of union and blue-collar
voters -- even as the demoralized party of ex-President Barack Obama
struggles to settle on a message to win them back.
Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer had only a terse response to Trump's
move to pull out of the TPP, a deal the Obama administration spent years
trying to negotiate but was unable to get ratified by Congress.
"TPP was dead long before President Trump took office. We await real action on trade," said Schumer in a statement.
Fast start
The
White House understands it needs a fast start since Trump entered
office with the lowest approval ratings for a newly inaugurated
president in modern times.
Its
answer was a swift display of executive power to generate a sense of
momentum for his new administration as forthcoming attempts to create
jobs through legislation, such as an infrastructure package that many
Republicans oppose, could take months.
"I
am very encouraged by the degree to which they are going to use
executive orders to ... dramatically change things very rapidly," said
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter, at a Heritage
Foundation lecture.
Time and again
Monday, reporters were herded into the Oval Office and the Roosevelt
Room in the West Wing to see Trump in action, signing executive orders
or laying down the law to union leaders or business leaders from blue
chip companies like Dell, Ford, Johnson & Johnson and Lockheed
Martin.
The image of the new
President as a man of action was a sign that after a rocky first
weekend, which included massive protests nationwide, his off-key speech
at the CIA and a new media feud centering around the crowd size at
Friday's inauguration, that the new White House was finding its feet and
able to drive a coordinated political message.
Dangerous strategy
But
it's one thing to maintain a solid public relations strategy. It's
another to pull off the ambitious reorganizing of US trade and commerce
that Trump is proposing. So Monday represented only a small first step.
The
President's belief that trade pacts are responsible for the flight of
many US jobs overseas represents a political risk, since higher tariffs
and trade disputes that may result could make foreign goods more
expensive for consumers or slow economic growth.
Disrupting
NAFTA may also be dangerous: Trade between the US, Canada and Mexico
hit $1.1 trillion in 2016, according to a Wharton Business School
report. Supporters of the pact say it supports millions of jobs in the
United States that could be at risk if it falters.
Trump's
decision to reopen NAFTA therefore represents another significant
gamble. For all his claims to being one of the world's great deal
makers, the leaders of Canada and Mexico will be under intense political
pressure to seal a better deal for their own people in new NAFTA
negotiations -- and are unlikely to simply roll over and allow Trump to
win all the spoils.
Mexico's
President Enrique Peña Nieto put Trump on notice Monday for tough
negotiations, saying "the Mexican president wants "bilateral
relationship with US to translate into more trade and jobs."
While
Democrats risked being outmaneuvered by Trump on the trade issue --
which played a powerful role in shaping the party's presidential
primary, there remain plenty of other areas of contention that suggest
the President's honeymoon with unions could be short-lived.
The
President's labor secretary nominee, Andrew Puzder, for instance
opposes calls for a rise in the minimum wage -- an issue that glues
Democrats to trade union voters. His administration's business-first
mantra could involve efforts to weaken labor protections. And if as
expected, Trump chooses a conservative Supreme Court justice, he could
rebalance the court in a way that could be damaging to union rights.
Trump
critics point out that photo-ops and episodes like his claim to have
saved jobs at air conditioner firm Carrier during his presidential
transition, represent a minuscule step toward creating millions of jobs.
And Democrats also Monday accused Trump of hypocrisy for lecturing US
corporate bosses on the need to keep manufacturing on US soil.
"I'd
remind the President of the two simple rules he laid out in his
inaugural address -- "Buy American and Hire American" -- two rules that
his current businesses do not follow," Schumer said on the Senate floor.
"Trump
shirts and ties are made in China. Trump furniture is made in Turkey.
While he's importuning on others to "make it in America," he should
start by demanding it of his own business."
TPP fallout
There
are also geopolitical implications from Trump's decision to pull out of
the TPP that could haunt the administration in future. The US
withdrawal will certainly benefit an emboldened China and the new
administration already appears on collision course with the rising Asian
power.
US
allies like Singapore meanwhile have repeatedly warned US credibility
in Asia would be seriously damaged if Washington pulled out of the TPP.
The
case against Trump's action was spelled out by Republican Sen. John
McCain, who is emerging as a fierce critic of the new administration's
foreign policy.
"This decision
will forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade
barriers, open new markets, and protect American invention and
innovation," McCain said in a statement.
"It
will create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the
road at the expense of American workers. And it will send a troubling
signal of American disengagement in the Asia-Pacific region at a time we
can least afford it."
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