China wants EVERYONE weakened. They enjoy this almost as much as when Bush went into the M.E and China was free to quietly steal U.S IP and expand their influence.
Of course the U.S must support Ukraine, but Europe must step up as well.
CPTPP (formally TPP) was the way to go... It would have created the largest trading block in the world with US as the defacto head.
It would have squeezed not only China but all the BRIC countries.
The aim was to allow other lower worker cost countries like Vietnam and Indonesia to have free trade with US while US could impose equal worker rights, health and safety laws, environmental laws, competition laws... This would make the US worker have a far fairer playing field against these countries...
China at the moment not only abuse IP laws but also use their government resources to manipulate markets like they did with Steel... One of Hillary last jobs as SOS was to goto Australia to control the amount of Iron Ore sent from TPP to China (Probably to redirect to US steel mills)...
TPP was about playing chess, this why it had support from both sides of the house. TPP was actually set up by the Bush Admin. The biggest problem in the US was to keep the major US lobbyists from getting too much control.
For interest groups that sought to influence Washington’s thinking on the massive trade package set to bind together 40 percent…
www.opensecrets.org
They were trying their best too influence it to suit corporations over the worker.
The basic idea was to have a kind of EU lite (ECC) fair trading block where US could invest freely and eventually build up markets in other countries as well. Think how Germany has flourished with the EU while Ireland (a poor entry initially) has also flourished... IT is the win win of good trade for both sides.
Trump unfortunally didn't see that when first came in and pulled out of it... He regretted that later...
The US president tweets confirmation that the US could rejoin the Pacific rim pact, a deal he has described as ‘horrible’
www.theguardian.com
www.politico.com
