University of Notre Dame Professor of Finance Jeffrey Bergstrand, an expert on international trade, says....

"President Trump's first executive action to formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) process, a promise made on his campaign trail, confirms his inauguration speech claim to increase trade protectionism by the U.S. government. Virtually all economic analyses of the proposed TPP, however, provided empirical arguments that the TPP would raise U.S. workers' income, both for highly educated and less educated workers. By withdrawing from TPP, five important changes likely result: (1) less opportunity for lowering prices in the United States, which negatively affects all U.S. consumers' standards of living; (2) increased opportunity for China to move forward the proposed 16-nation Asia-Pacific Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) -- which omits the United States -- likely diverting future exports of the United States to the Pacific Rim; (3); increased uncertainty in the United States over trade policies, hurting U.S. exporter activity and U.S. economic growth; reduced opportunity via TPP to help consolidate weaker democracies among several TPP members; and reduced opportunity for U.S economic interactions in the Pacific Rim, which may increase the probability of potential (military) conflicts."

Bergstrand, a fellow of Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies, is available for further comment at [email protected]