Trump learning? Voicing worries that he screwed up on TPP

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Sources tell MM that Trump has been quizzing people for several weeks about whether they think he made a big mistake by dumping TPP, especially now that he is trying to put pressure on China to reform its practices on intellectual property, forced technology transfers and auto tariffs, among other things.

The way the sources describe it to MM, Trump realizes he’d have a much stronger position against China if he had the support of TPP’s current 11 members, a group that includes Japan, Canada and Mexico. “He realizes he screwed it up but I don’t see how he can get back in,” one person close to the president said.

Indeed, a senior White House official cautioned to MM that it’s very early days and that it could wind up being very hard to get back into TPP. “It's very early in the process. The president is willing to take another look at it but there really is no there there yet,” the official told me.

“Everything else continues as it is including the China negotiations, the Japan summit that's coming up, the NAFTA negotiations. Nothing has changed. He's just exploring a lot of things right now and TPP is one of them. ... It's really starting at zero or less than zero at this point. We are just taking another look at it that's all."

COULD THE U.S. REJOIN TPP? — Sure it could! The remaining 11 would likely love to have us back. But not if it means a bunch of concessions to Trump. The U.S. would probably have to accept the agreement pretty much as it is, which could be impossible for Trump to sell to his populist, anti-free trade base, especially as he ripped the deal as awful on the campaign trail.

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MM spoke with former USTR Mike Froman, who helped negotiate TPP, about what it would take to get back in: “It’s designed to incorporate us back in. It purposely left the door open and created an incentive by saying these 20 provisions that are of particular interest to the United States will only go into effect if the United States joins the agreement. “

You can hear more from Froman on what the U.S. lost when it ditched TPP in this podcast I did with him late last year.

NEVER MIND? — Trump tweeted late Thursday a set of parameters that would essentially make getting back in impossible: “Would only join TPP if the deal were substantially better than the deal offered to Pres. Obama. We already have BILATERAL deals with six of the eleven nations in TPP, and are working to make a deal with the biggest of those nations, Japan, who has hit us hard on trade for years!”

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