US Senator Mike Rounds says he’s pleased President Donald Trump is reconsidering the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Rounds and other South Dakota Senator John Thune say they’re concerned by the president’s trade war with China.
He says that partnership is a good counter to proposed tariffs by the Chinese government.
The president abandoned TPP talks shortly after taking office.
Rounds says he wants the president to sign the TPP the way it was written in the first place.
“If he does still feel it’s necessary to go through and do each one individually then get started, get it done, then lets go back in—because we’ve got a little bit of time, not a lot of time—then let’s go back in to China and let them know we’ve got other agreements completed, and now we do speak with a position of more force, or at least with a better negotiating position, than simply going in with having nothing in place with those 500 million people in the Pacific Rim area."
Rounds says that gives the president negotiating power from a position of strength. He says that’s a key component to Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.”