WASHINGTON - The announcement this week that U.S. President Donald Trump will face an impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats will greatly complicate Trump’s efforts to rewrite global trade agreements, experts say, as both his foreign counterparts and domestic political allies assess his chances of political survival.
“This is a giant cloud over the administration's ability both to conduct foreign affairs and to get legislation passed,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
An impeachment proceeding will likely dominate the attention of lawmakers in Washington, experts say, making it difficult to see how the administration’s trade initiatives that require congressional approval will get passed.
It will also set foreign governments — most notably China, which has another round of trade talks with the U.S. scheduled for next month — scrambling to assess the president’s chances of finishing out his current term, much less winning reelection in 2020.
How the situation will ultimately resolve itself remains so unclear that most experts contacted by VOA were unwilling to speculate.
Lester Ross, the partner-in-charge of the WilmerHale law firm’s offices in Beijing, said only, “Political vulnerability of the leader of any government is likely to weaken such leader and country’s diplomatic and negotiating leverage.”
Another trade attorney, asked what he thought the impact of an impeachment inquiry would be on the president’s multiple ongoing trade initiatives, responded by emailing a of comedian and television star Larry David wearing his trademark look of utter bewilderment.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday she was launching a formal impeachment inquiry, after news broke that Trump had used a July phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to request that the government in Kyiv undertake an investigation into alleged corruption involving the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
The furor only grew Wednesday, after the White House released a memorandum roughly outlining the contents of the conversation. The transcript confirmed that Trump had made the request in the context of a conversation about military assistance to Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian-backed insurrection in its eastern provinces, as well as Moscow’s invasion of the Crimean peninsula.
The uproar didn’t stop Trump from trying to make progress on his trade agenda. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed an agreement that would lower Japanese agricultural tariffs and U.S. industrial tariffs, and establish new rules for digital trade between the two countries.
Speaking to reporters, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer characterized the agreement as “hugely important, particularly for American agriculture and for digital farmers,” and said it vindicates the president’s approach of negotiating trade deals bilaterally, rather than joining multi-nation pacts.
The limited nature of the agreement, which was negotiated as a precursor to a larger deal, meant that it could take place without the approval of Congress. However, the impeachment proceeding makes the prospect of a larger deal, which would require lawmakers’ assent, less likely.
The looming impeachment inquiry might mean that the deal Trump inked with Abe is his last trade success for the foreseeable future.
His attempt to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took the form of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, has been hung up in the House of Representatives for months.
Lighthizer said failure to pass the bill would be a “catastrophe” for the U.S. economy, and expressed confidence that it would be enacted.
“On the merits, this is demonstrably good for the people of the United States. And I think, for that reason, it will pass,” he said. “I believe in the system, and I think we're going to have a bilateral win. And I think it's going to be good for the economy, for the American people, for Republicans, but also good for the Democrats.”
But its approval by Congress, already prior to Pelosi’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry, now looks more unlikely than ever. Trump admitted as much on Monday, saying to reporters in New York, “I don’t know that they’re ever going to get to a vote. I don’t think they can do any deals.”