Credit
Eric Thayer for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — More than a year after President Trump abruptly pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it was a bad deal for the United States, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday that the United States is discussing rejoining the multilateral trade agreement.
Mr. Mnuchin, speaking at an investment summit meeting sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that renegotiating the trade agreement was “on the table” and that he had been in talks with other countries about what it would take for the United States to reverse course.
Mr. Trump withdrew from the deal in January 2017, dooming President Barack Obama’s signature trade agreement and leaving the 11 other countries in the pact scrambling to renegotiate the deal on their own. But Mr. Trump appears to have found a renewed interest in an agreement that he once described as “a rape of our country.”
“I’ve met with several of my counterparties and other people, and we’ve begun to have very high-level conversations about T.P.P.,” Mr. Mnuchin said, adding that Mr. Trump would still prefer to do one-on-one trade agreements first. “It’s not a priority at the moment, but it is something the president will consider.”
Mr. Trump opened the door to taking another look at the agreement in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, leading to speculation about whether he was upending his “America First” trade policy.
Credit
Toru Hanai/Reuters
“If we did a substantially better deal, I would be open to T.P.P.,” Mr. Trump said during an interview with CNBC.
Continue reading the main story
Powered by WPeMatico