President Donald Trump Pulls the Plug on Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Obama’s Signature Trade Deal

TRUMP ENDS AMERICAN JOB KILLING TPP …NOTE TO MSM, WHAT PART ABOUT AMERICA FIRST DIDN’T YOU QUITE UNDERSTAND?

On day one of his presidency, Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise and ended the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership. And so it further begins. First Obama went after Obamacare, Obama’s signature piece of legislation and now it’s Obama’s signature trade deal. Trump looks to make individual trade deals with countries and doing so from an America first vision. President Trump was able to end the TPP by an executive order because it was never approved by Congress. Bipartisan trade policy, eh NY Times?

President Trump upended America’s traditional, bipartisan trade policy on Monday as he formally abandoned the ambitious, 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership brokered by his predecessor and declared an end to the era of multinational trade agreements that defined global economics for decades.

With the stroke of a pen on his first full weekday in office, Mr. Trump signaled that he plans to follow through on promises to take a more aggressive stance against foreign competitors as part of his “America First” approach. In doing so, he demonstrated that he would not follow old rules, effectively discarding longstanding Republican orthodoxy that expanding global trade was good for the world and America — and that the United States should help write the rules of international commerce.

Although the Trans-Pacific Partnership had not been approved by Congress, Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw not only doomed former President Barack Obama’s signature trade achievement, but also carried broad geopolitical implications in a fast-growing region. The deal, which was to link a dozen nations from Canada and Chile to Australia and Japan in a complex web of trade rules, was sold as a way to permanently tie the United States to East Asia and create an economic bulwark against a rising China.

North and South Korea Exchange Artillery Round Fire

Tensions flare between North and South Korea …

North Korea is at it again. The exchange of fire into the Yellow Sea followed Pyongyang’s sudden announcement that it would conduct live-fire drills in seven areas north of the Koreas’ disputed maritime boundary.

North Korea fired 500 rounds of artillery shells over more than three hours, about 100 of which fell south of the sea boundary, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. South Korea responded by firing 300 shells into North Korean waters, he said.

CNN:

A day after raising the possibility of further nuclear tests, North Korea has engaged in provocative live-fire exercises near the South Korean maritime border, leading to an exchange of fire between the two neighbors.

Semi-official South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Monday that the North had begun the drill just after noon (local time). The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) confirmed that some North Korean ordnance landed in South Korean waters, and that the South responded with fire.

The JCS confirmed that the North Korean offshore military exercise began around 12:15 pm (local time) Monday, and said that “a part of North Korea’s shelling reached South Korean side of the NLL (Northern Limit Line) and we (South Korea) responded with K-9 self-propelled guns into the North Korean waters above NLL.”

The statement is in line with Yonhap’s report that the North fired “several” artillery shells, to which South Korean military responded with self-propelled artillery fire. The South Korean K-9 howitzers have a 24-mile (40-kilometer) range.