Donald Trump

Trump: I'd Reconsider Pacific Trade Deal If It Were Better

Last January, President Donald Trump made the largely symbolic move to pull out of the Pacific trade deal championed by his predecessor

President Donald Trump, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, sat down with CNBC Thursday and said he would reconsider the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement if the U.S. were able to nail down a "substantially better" deal.

"I would do TPP if we were able to make a substantially better deal. The deal was terrible, the way it was structured was terrible. If we did a substantially better deal, I would be open to TPP," Trump said.

Last January, Trump made the largely symbolic move to pull out of the Pacific trade deal championed by his predecessor, President Barack Obama. As a candidate, Trump repeatedly blasted the agreement, which had little chance of securing congressional approval even before he took office.

TPP was a 12-nation agreement among the United States and Pacific rim nations designed partly to curb China's influence. Critics like Trump worried that it would encourage companies to ship jobs from the U.S. to lower-wage countries.

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