Pacific trade pact minus US

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-on-sidelines-as-china-and-o…

**U.S. on Sidelines as China and Other Asia-Pacific Nations Launch Trade Pact**
**The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will eventually eliminate more than 90% of tariffs on commerce among 15 member countries**
**by Yuka Hayashi, The Wall Street Journal, 1/1/2022**

**China joins U.S. allies including Japan and Australia in a new Asia-Pacific trade agreement that launches Saturday—with the U.S. watching from the sidelines.**

**The new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, will eventually eliminate more than 90% of tariffs on commerce among its 15 member countries, in what economists say will be a boon to trade in the region.**

**It will also give China a more prominent role in setting rules of trade in the Asia-Pacific region at the expense of the U.S., according to some analysts....**

**The U.S. wasn’t invited to participate and said it wouldn’t have joined anyway because the agreement was considered too weak, lacking requirements for labor and environmental standards....The agreement comports with China’s interests, including weak rules on intellectual property rights, and none whatsoever on state-owned enterprises....** [end quote]

The other member nations of the RCEP are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. With RCEP members accounting for 30% of global population and gross domestic product, the partnership becomes the world’s largest regional trade agreement.

Japan, South Korea and Australia are strong U.S. allies and trading partners. The RCEP will link them more closely to China.

The U.S pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excluded China, in 2017 and has not returned.

China claims to be a communist country, but in fact it’s a mercantile power following bare-knuckle capitalism under an authoritarian government.

Requiring labor and environmental standards that would raise costs of business in the other members. American companies outsource manufacturing precisely because lower standards provide lower costs and higher profits. The other countries benefit by getting jobs even though their workers and environment suffer.

China is moving aggressively to solidify its advantage in the world trade sphere. This is a quiet but potentially important Macro trend in undermining the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.

Wendy

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Figuring out how that happened would probably wander into the political arena. I am sure there are some here who might call it critical trade theory.

This is not the only agreement the US has abrogated in the past few years which has had consequences, but this may have been the worst trade decision (other than applying tariffs to products purchased from our trading partners).

Jeff

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Somebody, somewhere declared trade wars were easy to win. So no reason to enter trade agreements. Which makes one wonder why that same person was constantly demanding other countries join the new NAFTA.

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China is moving aggressively to solidify its advantage in the world trade sphere. This is a quiet but potentially important Macro trend in undermining the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.

Wendy,

About ten years ago it was commonly known that China ran trade deficits with all of its other trading patterns except the US. The RMB peg to the USD helped China run a surplus with us.

As we break ties with China timing wise it aligns with China and Japan moving towards supply side economics. We are moving towards demand side economics. The issue being we wont need these alliances as they share the manufacturing base. China will be paying for its trading patterns as we were doing from 1981 to 2020. No matter how abrupt Trump was he did put his foot down. He did not complete that job of changing our relations in the world. That will take care of itself quite naturally. He was just trying to capitalize on the change over politically.

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The U.S pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excluded China, in 2017 and has not returned.

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I wonder who made that stupid mistake? :blush:

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Cant stand the man or his intentions, but he was right not to have us involved in another crazy give it away trade pact.

The economic pendulum is swinging in favor of the US and against China. The trade pacts always share the manufacturing base.

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