In Our View: Boost Trade With Japan

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was essentially dead by the time Donald Trump was elected in November, done in by bipartisan opposition to the agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries. But with the president officially burying the accord Monday through an executive order, it becomes time for the United States to move forward on trade — beginning with Japan.

This is of particular interest in Washington, the nation’s most trade-dependent state. The Washington Council on International Trade had estimated that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have meant $8.7 billion annually and 26,000 jobs to the state as international markets for agriculture, aerospace and technology were opened up. The partnership, negotiated over five years by the Obama administration, would have reduced tariffs between trading partners while calling for increased uniformity in labor, wage and environmental laws.

The loss of such an opportunity is a heavy price for this state to pay, but it is a cost that comes as no surprise. Even before Trump was elected, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had given voice to Democrats’ anti-trade faction, and candidate Hillary Clinton had switched her allegiance to join critics of the TPP. The deal was doomed regardless of who became the new president.

But as Trump signed his order formally withdrawing the United States from the pact, it reinforced the need for this country to engage with Japan. The United States is the world’s largest economy, with Japan ranking third, meaning that partnerships between the two can help reduce the influence of second-ranked China in a fast-growing region of the world. China is not part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but that did not prevent Trump from asserting that the accord was “a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone.”

The hope is that Trump’s future views of international business will governed more by truth and less by demagoguery, and that his frequent harangues against free trade will better embrace the realities of a changing world. Trump has vowed to return manufacturing jobs to the United States while ignoring the fact that automation has contributed mightily to a decline in manufacturing jobs. Economic isolationism will only lead to vast inflation that is damaging to consumers and to the economy as a whole.

Therefore, international trade is a key factor in a robust economy, and the United States must take the lead in this field or be left behind. Japan is the United States’ fourth-largest trading partner, behind Canada, China and Mexico, and its status as a resolute diplomatic partner and as a counterweight to China in the Asian market make it an essential partner when it comes to trade. Equally important, trade agreements with Japan will refurbish the United States’ reputation as a trustworthy partner in that region, a reputation that has been damaged by withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Meanwhile, Trump has vowed to renegotiate parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994 between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Revisiting an agreement that has been around for more than 20 years is a necessity, but it should be undertaken with the goal of improvement rather than opposition out of misguided ideological rigidity.

All of this is vitally important to Washington state, which understands better than most the truth about fare and open trade. That truth: Closing doors is not good for the economy.