An Analysis Of U.S.'s Withdrawal From The TPP From The Perspective Of Trade Politics

On Jan.23rd,2017,Trump's first day in office,he signed an executive order and officially withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP)trade deal,shifting to seek bilateral trade talks.A timely analysis of this policy outcome bears significance to better understand the "black box" of this decision and U.S.trade policymaking.In view of this,the thesis is set out to address this question:how U.S.trade politics resulted in U.S.'s retreat from the TPP.Trade policymaking is a significant point of congressional-executive's interaction and competition.The President's authority delegated by Congress leaves executive footprints on trade policy preferences.Meanwhile,as U.S.is a "strong society and weak state" under the structure of separated powers,trade policymaking is consistently susceptible to and challenged by different forces.The shifting power relations among them are reflected in the decentralized Congress.Though trade policies are centered on trade and economy issues,in essence,it is more of U.S.trade policymaking system's responses in different periods of time and under varying contexts.Placed in the scope of U.S.trade politics,this thesis focuses on the processes of trade policymaking shaped by four dimensions:the legislative-executive interaction,interest groups' influence,political parties and public opinion.In a qualitative inquiry,this paper is based on an integrated diamond-shaped framework and attempts to conduct an analysis that provides a domestic politics explanation of how different actors contributed to the final outcome with a revisit to TPP's timeline.In this framework,U.S.trade policymaking is perceived as an institutionalized process that involves various stakeholders and is resulted from their poly-interaction.Interest groups weigh in on the process with its strengths and resources in that trade policies redistribute their vital interest.Meanwhile,political parties hold different stances on trade issues for greater influence and greater odds at winning election.Public opinion also finds way to the decision-making when a certain trade issue is at the center of public interest and the policymakers incorporate their preferences for political purposes.It constructs a narrative for an explanation of the trade politics in TPP:as the bedrock of Obama's "pivot-to-Asia",TPP was originally backed by Congressional republicans but stirred an intra-party split in Democrats.The 2015 TPA renewal witnessed a confrontation between the two branches.Yet,Obama was granted the authority after two rounds of strenuous votes with majority from the two houses voting "Yes" to cooperate with Obama.The TPP negotiations were expedited and concluded in 2015 and Obama signed it with other trading partners in early 2016.However,the deal became contentious as many expressed concerns over its provisions.It had to sail through the 2016 election,in which presidential candidates vocally opposed it across party lines and dragged it to the center of public debates.The general public in the U.S.have lukewarm support for free trade and are suspicious of the trade deal.TPP became highly controversial in the election cycle's ferments.A rift emerged,as Congress members,sensitive to trade politics in election,took a step back,not wanting any public association with the deal in order to win re-election endorsement in their constituencies,which led up to a stalemate in TPP's ratification.Despite Obama's and other business groups' efforts,Congress didn't intend to call a vote for TPP's ratification,thus rendering it much feasible in procedures for Trump to make a move on it.During the competition between Congress and the White House,labor unions and activist groups' protests and campaign contributions impacted the process even though they were not in an advantageous side when comparing their contributions and lobbying expenditures with those of pro-TPP interest groups.A more vital role was multinational pharmaceutical companies,which switched key Congressmen's position.They pressed Obama for reopening TPP trade talks and put him in a dilemma.Trump succeeded by capitalizing on the public sentiment and fulfilled his campaign pledge.The analysis argues that U.S.'s withdrawal results from an interaction of governmental agents(the executive,the Congress and political parties)and stakeholders(interest groups and the public).It reflects their shifting power dynamics and reveals the conflicts between different regions,industries and social classes.The appeals of different interest parties' are best translated into U.S.'s "Check-and-Balance" system with sufficient channels,which renders it less likely for the final outcome to be a major deviant from the stakeholders'expectations.