Japan must review US trade strategy

While the policies of new US President Donald Trump remain shrouded in unpredictability, he has already made good on part of his protectionist campaign promises just days after taking office. The president’s executive order signed on Monday to pull the US out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact, along with his plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, should prompt the Japanese government to take steps to contain possible damage from the changes in US trade policies.

Just hours before Trump signed the order effectively killing the TPP deal, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who continued to call Trump a “trustworthy leader”, said he would keep up efforts to persuade the US government to put the deal into force. But now it’s official — with the withdrawal of the largest economy among its signatories, the TPP pact, which had been pushed by former president Barack Obama’s administration as an economic pillar of his Asia-Pacific “pivot” to counter the rise of China and was concluded in 2016 by the US and 11 other Pacific Rim countries including Japan, will not take effect as it stands.

Abe, who considered the TPP a key part of his efforts to drive up Japan’s stagnant growth, will need to review his trade strategy. Trump has assaulted the TPP as a “disaster” that would kill US jobs and his administration is instead likely to pursue bilateral trade deals that would benefit US workers and industries in line with his “America First” policy. That could indeed be on the agenda when Abe holds his first meeting with Trump as early as February.

Indicating that he still would not give up on getting Trump to change his mind, Abe told the Japanese Diet on Tuesday he believes the US president “recognises the importance of free and fair trade”. Trump’s remarks suggest it is wishful thinking. Tokyo, January 24.