US pulls out of Trans-Pacific Partnership
Interestingly at today&#x27;s White House Press Briefing, a reporter asked the Press Secretary whether the Trump Administration thought that it could surround&#x2F;contain China with bilateral trade agreements the way that the TPP had intended to do on a multilateral basis.<p>China has a couple of free trade deals in the region. It has a multilateral effort (RCEP) which is somewhat stalled and primarily pursued bilateral trade agreements.<p>This may put American and China toe-to-toe in reaching agreements with Asian Pacific states. There’s a question about the quality of the trade deals that can be reached, if the target nations are clever enough to play Beijing and Washington off against one another.<p>The Trump Administration has suggested that bilateral agreements are better because they don’t devolve into “least common denominator” the way multilateral deals do; and that they also allow the deals to be quickly withdrawn from or renegotiated to account for new realities.