Why Trump’s withdrawal from the TPP is a boon for China

US President Donald Trump yanked the United States out of a major Pacific trade deal Monday, making good on an election campaign promise and delivering a hammer blow to Asian allies

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US President Donald Trump shows the Executive Order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Photo: EPA

Published: 2:15pm, 24 Jan 2017Updated: 9:04pm, 24 Jan 2017

US President Donald Trump’s formal withdrawal from a long-planned trade deal with Pacific Rim nations creates a political and economic vacuum that China is eager to fill, offering a boost for beleaguered US manufacturing regions while damaging American prestige in Asia.

The move is a sledgehammer blow to former president Barack Obama’s attempt to recalibrate US foreign policy from the Mideast to Asia.

As the Trump administration retreats from the region by ending US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China’s Communist leaders are ramping up their globalisation efforts and championing the virtues of free trade. In an address last week to the World Economic Forum at Davos, China’s President Xi Jinping likened protectionism to “locking oneself in a dark room” and signalled that China would look to negotiate regional trade deals.

China is advocating for a 16-nation pact being led by Southeast Asian nations that lacks some of the environmental and labour protections Obama negotiated into the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and does not currently include the US.

US President Donald Trump shows the Executive Order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Photo: AFP

Xi and other Chinese leaders are also looking to fill the US leadership vacuum, taking advantage of Trump’s protectionism to boost ties with traditional US allies like the Philippines and Malaysia.

“The US is now basically in a position where we had our horse, the Chinese had their horse - but our horse has been put out to pasture and is no longer running in the race,” said Eric Altbach, vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington and a former deputy assistant US Trade Representative for China Affairs.