WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The 73-page report made no reference to US presidential politics. However it cited the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific-rim nations, which President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to kill on his first day in office.
"The Obama administration’s ambitious trade agenda is especially important as other countries continue to enter into FTAs, putting US businesses on an uneven playing field," the report stated.
Without the TPP, US exporters will have to contend with trade deals between China, South Korea and Japan, as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership being negotiated by ten nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which also includes China.
Here, the Commerce Department reported mentioned a pending European Union trade deal with Canada, which the report said posed a potential threat to US exporters.
Although Trump rarely mentioned the TTIP, a centerpiece of his campaign included a vow to renegotiate existing trade deals. Trump claimed US officials had been duped into signing poorly negotiated agreements that robbed American workers of jobs.
Trump’s appeal proved especially poignant in decayed industrial areas of the United States — such as the auto-manufacturing US state of Michigan — where tens of thousands of workers have lost jobs due to factories relocating to Mexico under the existing North American Free Trade Agreement.
