Trump Withdraws U.S. From Pacific Trade Pact On Third Day In Office, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That The Country Was Positioned To Write The Rules Of Asia-Pacific Commerce Before China Could

WASHINGTON. President Donald J. Trump signed a presidential memorandum Monday formally withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade agreement negotiated over seven years to bind the largest economy in the world together with eleven Pacific allies in a single set of trade, labor, and intellectual property standards, resolving long-standing concern that the country was positioned to write the rules of Asia-Pacific commerce before China could.

The memorandum, signed three days into the new administration in front of cameras in the Oval Office, was described by the President as "a great thing for the American worker." Standing beside him, a senior administration official explained that withdrawal would refocus U.S. trade policy on bilateral deals, in which the United States would negotiate one country at a time rather than confront the inefficient prospect of setting standards for forty percent of global GDP at once.

The pact, which had been signed by the Obama administration but never ratified by the Senate, would have eliminated tariffs across Japan, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, and seven other economies while imposing labor and environmental rules that excluded the People's Republic of China by design. Analysts had described it as the economic component of a broader American strategy to counterbalance Beijing in the region.

Within hours of the signing, officials in Beijing welcomed the move, with Chinese state media describing it as an opportunity to advance the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a competing framework led by China and including most of the same Pacific economies. Australian and Japanese officials, who had spent years securing concessions in the American deal, declined immediate comment.

"We are going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration, and on national security," the President said as he held the signed memorandum aloft for the cameras. Asked whether the administration had prepared a replacement framework for Asia-Pacific trade, a senior official said one was "in development."

At press time, eleven Pacific nations had begun preliminary discussions of a successor agreement that would proceed without American participation, an outcome the United States had spent the prior decade attempting to prevent.