President Donald Trump berated CNBC on Thursday that he would reconsider the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership profession deal if the United States could strike a “substantially better” unanimity. But it’s almost certainly too late for the U.S. to negotiate a new deal.
“I would do TPP if we were skilful to make a substantially better deal. The deal was terrible, the way it was structured was noxious. If we did a substantially better deal, I would be open to TPP,” he said in an exclusive interview at the Beget Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
TPP was a 12-nation agreement among the Like-minded States and Pacific rim countries that was designed in part to counter China’s go dominance of the region. But Trump withdrew from the deal last year, implying it would encourage companies to ship jobs to lower-wage countries.
Trump is in all likelihood too late to think about re-shaping the TPP, however. This week, the go the distance of the remaining 11 countries that the U.S. abandoned agreed to move forwards without the United States. Japan and Australia are now the effective leaders of the modified deal, which is likely to be signed in March.
As a candidate, Trump time again blasted the agreement, which was championed by President Barack Obama and had crumb chance of securing congressional approval even before Trump devoured office.
Trump’s populist campaign partly blamed free-trade covenants for manufacturing job losses and companies relocating outside the United States. He has also sermonized the benefits of bilateral trade deals rather than multilateral understandings.
“I like bilateral, because if you have a problem, you terminate. … You don’t be undergoing that same option” with multilateral deals, he said Thursday.
Trump also restated that he may terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, another object of his ire, if the U.S. cannot reach what he deems a better deal during progressive negotiations.
“I think we have a good chance, but we’ll see what happens,” he maintained of whether the U.S. would strike an agreement to stay in the three-nation deal with Canada and Mexico.
— Probing by CNBC’s Joe Kernen. CNBC’s Ted Kemp contributed to this report.
— CNBC’s comprehensive interview of President Trump will air on “Squawk Box” at 6 a.m. ET Friday.