Trump loves to talk about trade but when it came to China he put up some token tariffs and announced “I didn’t say it would be easy” and then did nothing the rest of his term.
they were mostly ineffective tariffs, in the "tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter" sense, but he wasn't all talk
(This was a surprise to me. I'm grateful that I'm not at risk of being extradited to rot in a chinese prison for reverse engineering some IoT POS.)
The point of TPP was containing China. China wasn't invited. Trump blew it up resulting in a trade bloc designed to exclude China turning into one that excludes us [1].
Trump's voters don't like trade.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_and_Progressive_...
Without it their incentive was to cut deals to work closer economically with China…
Trump’s isolationist inclinations empowers America’s enemies.