The United States will consider re-entry to the Trans Pacific Partnership once Washington accomplishes its goals on other trading relationships, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said while on an official visit to Chile on Wednesday.
Trans Pacific Partnership is aimed at cutting trade barriers in some of the fastest-growing economies of the Asia-Pacific region. The original 12-member deal was thrown into limbo early last year when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it, citing concerns about protecting U.S. jobs.
"Our focus at the moment, is obviously we’re working on renegotiation of NAFTA, we’re very focused on our trading relationship with China, which is way too much in one direction. Our markets are open to them, their markets are not open to us, on the same basis," Mnuchin said at a news conference.
He was in Chile following a two day meeting of officials from the world's 20 biggest economies in neighboring Argentina on Monday and Tuesday.
“But as we accomplish our goals on these other trading relationships, this (TPP) is definitely something that we will consider and Chile will be a big partner of ours in that at the right time,” Mnuchin said.