1.

Why do you think President Trump has said during his presidential campaign that he
would renegotiate or withdraw U.S’s international trade agreements?

 Based on the international news from the former president of the United States,
Donald J. Trump, it was explicitly mentioned that American workers are
hampered by the said trade agreements. As a result of this occurrence, as well as
the mix of Donald Trumps supposed “America First” policy, he desired to
renegotiate the terms of agreement to be much more beneficial for the regular
American workers, as there are times that the terms of agreement damage the
financial capacity of a regular American citizen.

2. What do you think are the effects of U.S withdrawal to international trade
agreements?

 Apparently, international trade agreements changed some of its terms to please

the demands of the United States government. However, The TPP was designed
to reduce trade barriers and promote economic integration among the 12 Pacific
countries, which included the Philippines. The agreement would have lowered
tariffs on goods and services traded between the countries, making it easier and
cheaper for Philippine businesses to export their products to other markets. It
would have also opened new opportunities for Philippine businesses to access the
supply chains of other countries. Also, this is a possible scenario for an
establishment of a trade war as the United States government asserts its interest to
control the international market by dominating the foreign trade markets by
forcing other countries to engage trade without the effect of TPP, as they deemed
it oppressive for the American citizens.

3. Will the Philippines be affected of this motion? Why or why not?

 Without the United States, the TPP will bring lesser trade benefits, although the
benefits are big, the effect of the USA’s government move will have lesser
immediate significant effects to our country. Philippines is a member of the
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC),
which promotes regional economic integration and trade liberalization with their
member nation states. Being not too dependent on one source of trade is a
universally good practice for a nation state as flexibility of the flow of goods and
acquisition of certain supply chains are not entirely dependent on one source. The
United States’ decision is a loss to both parties if economic matters are to be
considered, but it is bearable for both parties as they are also capable of
negotiating and trading with other nation states independently. It is also worth
noting that the globally, it will shake other primary trading partners of US, but for
now, Philippines’ greatest trading partner is China, which is much more impactful
compared to the US, that only ranked 3rd, which is almost a double if compared
between the two trading partners. All in all, we have a fallback, it is not the
greatest problem for us, as we have an ample of countries to trade with.