Donald Trump to end TPP on first day; Shinzo Abe says trade pact meaningless without US

Buenos Aires: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be meaningless without US participation, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday as US President-elect Donald Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the pan-Pacific free trade deal. Abe, who attended a gathering of TPP leaders in Lima on Saturday, said there was no discussion at the meeting that other members should try to put the TPP into effect without the United States, Abe told reporters in BueDonald Trump to end TPP on the first day; Shinzo Abe says trade pact meaningless without USnos Aires. “The TPP would be meaningless without the United States,” Abe said. [caption id=“attachment_2987752” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file photo of Shinzo Abe. AFP[/caption] Trump released a video on Monday laying out actions he would take on his first day in office on 20 January, including withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump campaigned for the US presidency on a promise to pull out of the 12-nation trade deal, calling it a job-killing “disaster”. He also said he would issue a rule cutting government regulations, direct the Labor Department to investigate abuses of visa programmes and cancel some restrictions on energy production, including shale oil and gas and coal. Abe, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to discuss economic cooperation and a decades-old territorial row, stressed at the Buenos Aires news conference his resolve to put an end to the island dispute under his leadership. “This is the problem that cannot be solved without the relationship of trust between leaders,” Abe said. “I will be directly communicating with President Putin and make progress one solid step at a time.” The territorial row over the chain of western Pacific islands, seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II, has upset diplomatic ties ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow.

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