As widely expected President Trump has signed an executive order removing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, CNN reports. This was one of his ‘first day’ commitments, as discussed in Panjiva research of January 17. The next, and arguably more important, item on the agenda is a renegotiation of NAFTA. Commerce Secretary nominee Ross has stated NAFTA is “logically the first thing for us to deal with”.

U.S. trade with TPP signatories accounted for $655.1 billion of value in the 12 months to November 30, Panjiva data for imports and exports shows, yet 75.8% of this was with Mexico and Canada. Indeed, the only major trading partner aside from the two within NAFTA was Japan which accounted for 9.5%. Yet, exports to TPP members ex NAFTA expanded 7.6% in the past quarter, whereas exports to NAFTA fell 2.2%. The opportunity for further growth with the former may be foregone, where exports to the latter clearly need a new impetus.

Calculations segment U.S. imports and exports by trading partner. Note that data for Brunei, Peru and Vietnam are not shown for scaling clarity Source: Panjiva