Japan says TPP "meaningless" without US, but still hopes to save pact

Will We Be Fooled Again? Stop the TPP!

TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he would continue to advocate free trade, and officials said they hadnt given up on the Trans-Pacific Partnership despite President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from the deal.

Government spokesman Koichi Hagiuda said it was meaningless to have the TPP without the U.S. and Tokyo wasnt considering revising it excluding Washington.

Opinion Journal: Asia Trade Deal: Dead (2:54)

Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot on the U.S. withdrawal from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. Photo: EPA

Without the U.S., it would lose the fundamental balance of benefits, Hagiuda said at a regular news conference. Trump formally took the U.S. out of the 12-nation tpp on monday.

hagiuda and trade minister Hiroshige Seko said Japan hadnt given up on persuading Trump to change his mind. We want to continue to explain to the U.S. about the strategic and economic merits of the TPP, Seko said. He said Abe spoke by phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday and reaffirmed the significance of the TPP.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/japan-says-tpp-meaningless-without-us-but-still-hopes-to-save-pact-2017-01-23

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Trump, TPP & AT&T

Trans-Pacific Partnership EXPLAINED!

Now its really dead.

Donald Trump released a video yesterday describing actions he will take on his first day in office, and top of the list was withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who is at the APEC meetings in Peru, said the trade deal is meaningless without U.S. participation. So thats the end of that.

Having killed the economic centerpiece of President Obamas China strategy, President-elect Trump now has to come up with his own. Until he does, as Andrew Browne writes in this mornings Wall Street Journal, other Asian nations will be tempted to follow the example of the Philippines and Malaysia and join the Beijing bandwagon. Not an auspicious first act.

Meanwhile, prospects for an AT&T-Time Warner deal may be looking up. The President-elect blasted the merger during his campaign, saying it was an example of the power structure Im fighting. Given that AT&T and Time Warner dont compete with each other, the main antitrust objection was likely to come from the FCC, based on concerns that AT&T would give Time Warner videos preferred treatment or zero rating on its mobile devices, violating the spirit of net neutrality rules. But the President-elect yesterday announced a transition team for the FCC that includes two staunch opponents of net neutrality, both of whom have worked for telecom companies. Expect legions of lobbyists to earn their 2017 salaries off of this one.

Finally, the President-elect sent another signal to business leaders who dare to cross him. After JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon indicated he had no interest in serving as Trumps Treasury Secretary, a campaign source told NBC that the banker was never under consideration for the job, and that Trump doesnt respect Dimon anyway. So there.

Source: http://fortune.com/2016/11/22/trump-tpp-att/

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