Trump's Take on Trade Treaty: Too Long, Didn't Read
Donald Trump's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership can pretty much be summed up in one little acronym: TL;DR.
When asked at Tuesday's presidential primary debate on Fox Business about his stance on the trade agreement reached in October among 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the U.S., the GOP frontrunner reiterated a stance he has taken in the past on the deal -- it's a no go.
"The TPP is a horrible deal. It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble. It is a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone," he said.
But this time around, he also added on an extra layer to his criticism: it's too long.
"It's 5,600 pages long, so complex that nobody's read it," he said.
Nobody's ever read it, or maybe just Trump? After all, he has kept a pretty busy schedule between campaigning and pushing his new book, a much easier-to-digest read at under 200 pages -- and that includes pictures.
The notoriously policy-light Trump remained vague on the details on exactly how he would approach trade as president, but he did toss in some numbers.
"I'd rather make individual deals with individual countries. We will do much better. We lose a fortune on trade. The United States loses with everybody. We're losing now over $500 million in terms of imbalance with China, $75 million a year imbalance with Japan. By the way, Mexico, $50 million a year imbalance," he said, later adding, "I love trade, I'm a free trader 100%, but we need smart people that can do deals, and we don't have smart people making the deals."
When asked for the specifics of the parts of the trade deal he was against, the explanation got a bit fuzzy. He pinpointed currency manipulation, specifically from China -- one of his favorite topics of conversation.
"If you look at the way they [China] take advantage, it's through currency manipulation. It's not even discussed in the almost 6,000-page agreement," he said.
Fellow Republican contender Rand Paul has apparently had a bit more time to page through the TPP, which, FYI, you can find in its entirety here. And he gave Trump a clue as to why China might not be mentioned so much in the agreement.
"Hey, Gerard, you know we might want to point out China's not part of this deal," he said, addressing moderator Gerard Baker.
Although Trump didn't jump to defend himself, he may have been referring to the possibility that China could enter the agreement at some later point through what's called a docking agreement.
Specifics aside, Trump isn't alone in his criticism of the TPP among presidential contenders.
On the Democratic Party side, both Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have come out in strong opposition to the agreement, as has Hillary Clinton -- even though she has supported it in the past.
As for the GOP, the vast majority of the current candidates support the agreement. Both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have voiced their support in op-eds, and Ted Cruz has favored it as well, though he has backtracked on fast-tracking its approval.
Others, including Ben Carson, John Kasich and Rand Paul, have voiced general support (though they have voiced distrust for Obama and concern about the details). Mike Huckabee, on the other hand, has spoken quite strongly in opposition to the TPP.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.