{"id":10564,"date":"2019-02-25T15:12:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T07:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=10564"},"modified":"2019-02-25T15:12:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T07:12:36","slug":"u-s-foreign-policy-pundit-tpp-withdrawal-a-strategic-and-economic-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=10564","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Foreign Policy Pundit: TPP Withdrawal a \u201cStrategic and Economic Error\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Manik Mehta<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEW YORK, Feb 25 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Richard Haass, the U.S. foreign policy maven who heads the prestigious New York based foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations, has described the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a \u201cstrategic and economic error\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called the TPP a \u201claboratory\u201d which provided a lot of ideas that were factored into the revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) whose new avatar is known as the MCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulling out from the TPP was the first foreign policy act of the then newly inaugurated President Donald Trump in January 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haass, who was speaking two days ago at the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York and quizzed by Warren Hoge, the IPI\u2019s external relations advisor, said that President Trump had vowed during the election to pull out from the TPP which was devised by the previous Obama administration as a vehicle to support its pivot to the Asia Pacific, a region considered to be of key strategic and economic importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haass\u2019 latest book A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order<\/em> seeks to highlight the major changes taking place in world affairs as the old order seems to be receding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haass also said President Trump believes passionately that \u201cAmerica has got a raw deal out of trade and that trade is, essentially, a \u2018rip off\u2019 and, secondly, broadly speaking, America\u2019s global alliances cost more than it benefits us\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Haass also said that Trump has done some positive things on foreign policy front, pointing out he had turned the spotlight on what China is doing in the economic field, and reminded that it is time for a \u201creset\u201d in U.S.-China relations.  But Haass also said that he was critical about American foreign policy\u2019s reliability and predictability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pinpointed two developments taking place: first, countries are beginning to take matters more into their own hands as is happening in Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc. , and, secondly, countries defer less to the United States, especially where American influence has declined.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we are beginning to see around the world is a very different dynamic \u2026 (with) much less emphasis on shared responsibility, on human rights, democracy, much less emphasis on values and institutions.\u201d Relations are beginning to fray because America is not predictable, reliable, as it over-emphasizes burden-sharing rather than obligations.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we are beginning to see is a very different dynamic with much less emphasis on shared responsibilities, much less emphasis on human rights, democracy and values \u2026 much less emphasis on institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haass revealed that he had his \u201c15 minutes of fame\u201d when Trump mentioned in one of the debates, his name as consultant during the campaign in the Presidential race.\u00a0 \u201cTrump liked my (earlier) book\u00a0Foreign Policy Begins at Home<\/em>, but I reminded him that foreign policy does not end at home,\u201d Haass remarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his view, Trump Is not an \u2018isolationist but, in large, a unilateralist\u201d.\u00a0 The President is \u201cvery anti-institution \u2026 whether the institution is WTO or treaties like the JCPOA (also known as the Iran nuclear deal), migration or the Paris agreement (climate change).”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Haass talked about the \u201cassault\u201d on America\u2019s basic foreign policy, he also notes that he does not see the world come up with a new order without the United States. \u201cI don\u2019t like to use the phrase \u2018indispensable power\u2019 (for the U.S.) because I want others to say that about us, I never liked us to say that about us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haass also doubted whether China had the capability to become a world leader, replacing the USA.\u00a0 \u201cTo be a world leader, you got to have ambitions, certain capabilities, certain followers. I don\u2019t see China aspiring for that role \u2026 (because) China is still using its foreign policy, more than anything else, as a function of its domestic policy \u2026 you can be a world leader by coercion or by (using your) weight, but that\u2019s impossible these days.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The United States turned out to be a very effective world leader because it was done with consent.\u00a0 The United States, for its most part, did not impose its leadership on others but designed it and others were pretty happy to participate.\u00a0 People were not forced to enter into alliances \u2026 or institutions \u2026 they did so voluntarily.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Manik Mehta NEW YORK, Feb 25 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Richard Haass, the U.S. foreign policy maven who heads the prestigious New York based foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations, has described the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a \u201cstrategic and economic error\u201d. He called the TPP a \u201claboratory\u201d which provided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,288],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10564"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}