Trump hits the ground running, kills TPP

President Donald Trump on Monday made good on his promise to undo the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. His team is suggesting that the president is also seriously considering options to withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA.

Trump undid Obama’s trade deal with the stroke of a pen, saying: “Everyone knows what that means, right? We’ve been talking about this for a long time. It’s a great thing for the American worker.”

TPP was often described as “NAFTA on steroids” by people familiar with the terms of the agreement, and even traditionally pro-trade free marketers were concerned by the idea of a free trade bill full of language that was written behind closed doors and withheld from the

Many critics saw the arrangement involving the United States, a group of Asian countries and Canada, Chile, Peru and Mexico, as a ploy to further undermine the democratic process by drastically increasing corporate sway over government policies.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka praised the presidents move, calling it a first step in putting Americans back to work.

“They are just the first in a series of necessary policy changes required to build a fair and just global economy,” he said in a statement.

Trump’s administration also suggested during a press briefing Monday that the president is exploring the best options for rolling back NAFTA in the months ahead.

The new president said he is working to implement a hefty new border tax in an effort to prevent U.S. companies from taking jobs out of the country to cut costs.

“If you go to another country and you decide that you’re going to close and get rid of 2,000 people or 5,000 people … we are going to be imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in,” Trump told CEOs gathered at the White House Monday.

The president said he also wants to make it more lucrative for companies to stay in the U.S. by cutting taxes on businesses and workers.

“We’re going to be cutting taxes massively for both the middle class and for companies, and that’s massively,” Trump said. “We’re trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20 percent, and it’s now 35 percent, but it’s probably more 38 percent than it is 35 percent.”

In addition to slashing taxes, Trump also told the business leaders that they can expect thousands of regulations to disappear as his team settles into the White House.

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