UPDATE: This, Again: Scott Bessent Wants to Resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But Does Donald Trump? No.
For Donald Trump to want to resurrect the TPP—to recognize he made a huge mistake back in January 2017—would be possible only if Donald Trump actually had ideas and preferences about policies, which h
For Donald Trump to want to resurrect the TPP—to recognize he made a huge mistake back in January 2017—would be possible only if Donald Trump actually had ideas and preferences about policies, which he does not. All he has are “instincts”…
Eight years and three months after Donald Trump blew up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and so unilaterally disarmed the United States in the runup to his launching his trade war against China, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claims (a) he has the baton from Donald Trump to use the threat of tariffs to negotiate trade deals, and (b) his first priority is to renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and then have its members negotiate as a group vis-a-vis the Great Central Country that is China. Chris Anstey notices. But there is one big problem:
Chris Anstey: Bessent Has a ‘Grand Encirclement’ Plan for China <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-04-12/bessent-has-a-grand-encirclement-plan-for-china-bloomberg-new-economy>: ‘Trump abandoned the TPP shortly after first taking office in January 2017…. [And now] there’s no indication the 78-year-old Republican aligns with his Treausry secretary’s gang-up-on-China approach. Meantime… Lutnick and… Navarro, are focused on the flood of cash, ostensibly earmarked for domestic manufacturing, a high tariff wall may temporarily provide. They’re not championing grand geo-economic strategy…. Countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia that have been threatened with high tariffs lack the capacity for large-scale investments (unlike Japan and South Korea) that could create American jobs. So it’s not clear what sort of deals could be possible. Trump this week highlighted that deals can go beyond trade. So would Cambodia bar Chinese vessels from the Ream Naval Base that’s seen as a potential China military hub in Southeast Asia? Only time will tell. Washington’s surrender of soft-power influence cannot have helped. As Trump shut down US Agency for International Development assistance in Cambodia, China has ramped up. So Bessent has his work cut out for him. And an early-July deadline, as Trump’s 90-day pause ticks down…
Not having blown up the TPP would have been the best thing. The Obama team knew what it was redoing in pursuing a strategy to rebalance the U.S.-China trade relationship. But, having blown up the TPP in the past, it would indeed be the best thing to resurrect it.
But that is not possible. First of all, none of the other potential members believe that Trump is a credible negotiating partner. Bessent wants to work with “Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and India”. They will be very happy to say they are working with the U.S. Their leaders will even come to Mar-a-Lago, and say nice words about Trump. But they all know that there is no point in conceding anything to Trump because doing so will get them the exactly zero credit with Trump that Mexico and Canada got from playing ball with Trump and doing him the favor of transforming what he said was the worst into the very best of trade agreements by renegotiating NAFTA into the USMCA agreement.
Second, Bessent is, to put it bluntly, lying.
He does not have a baton.
There is no baton.
Trump makes decisions minute to minute based on “instincts”. If Bessent manages to come up with something and bring it to Trump as a moment when Trump’s instincts say “yes”, Trump will take credit for it. If Bessent comes up with nothing, or if what he brings to Trump is not to Trump’s instinctive liking at that particular moment, Trump will disavow Bessent for freelancing.
Such is life at the court of the chaos-monkey king.
But I said all this last week:
And it's even worse, because his one thing that approaches a policy preference is never being wrong.
An excellent objective, pursued (of course it is not) with mistaken means.