Donald Trump to walk away from TPP trade deal

Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal "from day one" of his term as president.

The president-elect made the announcement in a short YouTube video message in which he outlined his administration's policy platforms for his first 100 days in office.

"I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a potential disaster for our country," he said. "Instead we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals."

Asia-Pacific leaders, meeting in Peru over the weekend, have indicated they will "continue to pursue free trade deals despite Mr Trump's opposition", the BBC says.

But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said TPP "would be meaningless without the United States", and conceded the deal's other signatory countries were yet to discuss how to salvage the agreement if Trump carried out his pledge.

US withdrawal "could bolster moves towards a new regional trade pact that includes China", The Guardian says.

Simon Rabinovitch, the Asia economics editor at The Economist, said the collapse of the TPP will "create a void in Asia" that China would seek to fill by becoming the region's "leader in shaping trade agreements".

The TPP is the largest trade pact in world history, involving 12 countries from the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China, and covering 40 per cent of the world's economy. It was agreed in 2015 but is yet to be ratified.

The New York Times says the deal was "intended to play a strategic role in American diplomacy", and designed to "reaffirm the nation's role as a Pacific power and counter the rising influence of China".

What does Barack Obama really think of Donald Trump?

21 November

President Barack Obama has so far taken a diplomatic tone since Donald Trump was voted into the White House.

However, this weekend he hinted that could change if the Republican breaches certain US "values or ideals".

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, Obama promised to give the president-elect an "opportunity to put forward his platform and his arguments without somebody popping off".

But, he added, if an issue "goes to core questions about our values and our ideals and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes".

"By convention, former presidents tend to leave the political fray and avoid commenting on their successors," reports the BBC.

Obama has remained fairly neutral on Trump since the election and has even attempted to reassure colleagues and allies. He apparently told distraught White House staffers "this is not the apocalypse" and last week met with EU leaders to say Trump was committed to Nato and the Transatlantic Alliance.

The President has also revealed what he told his two daughters in the wake of post-election racial attacks. "What I say to them is that people are complicated," he told the New Yorker. "These are living organisms, and it's messy... You should anticipate that at any given moment there's going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn't stop. You don't get into a foetal position about it... You say, 'OK, where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward?'"

However, for all his reassurances, Obama's warnings while on the campaign trail with fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton will not be easily forgotten.

"Donald Trump's closing argument is, 'What do you have to lose?' The answer is, everything," he told supporters last month at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio.

"All the progress we've made right now is on the ballot. Civility is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot. Courtesy is on the ballot. Honesty is on the ballot. Equality is on the ballot. Kindness is on the ballot. All the progress we made that last eight years is on the ballot. Democracy itself is on the ballot right now."

Donald Trump makes 'extraordinarily casual' offer to Theresa May

18 November

Civil servants have been left scratching their heads after a leaked transcript showed Donald Trump telling Theresa May "If you travel to the US you should let me know", during their first phone call since the Republican's victory in the US election.

The UK Prime Minister was the tenth world leader to speak to the president-elect following the election. At the time, Downing Street reported that May had called "to congratulate him on his hard-fought election campaign and victory" and claimed May had been invited to visit the US "as soon as possible", reports The Guardian.

However, the leaked transcripts show that Trump's exact words were "If you travel to the US you should let me know". It's an "extraordinarily casual phrase", says The Independent, and casts doubt over whether May had actually been formally invited to visit Trump in the US.

One of the many criticisms levelled at Trump on his way to the White House was his lack of political experience, having never previously held an elected office. The leaked transcript has done little to allay these concerns, with the Daily Mirror referring to his phrasing as "bizarrely un-presidential".

Trump's shock election also raised concerns that the "special relationship" between the US and UK – a phrase coined by Winston Churchill to describe the countries' close political and cultural ties – would suffer under his presidency. 

There were rumours shortly after Trump's victory that the UK government might turn to Nigel Farage to liaise with Trump after he became the first British politician to meet the president-elect after the election.

However, both Downing Street and Farage himself have denied any wish to collaborate on a political level to ensure strong diplomatic ties to the US under Trump.

Donald Trump's transition 'disarray'

16 November

Donald Trump has denied that his transition team is in chaos after several senior members were fired.

The first sign of trouble came last Friday, when New Jersey governor Chris Christie was dumped from his role of transition leader and replaced by vice president-elect Mike Pence.

The bloodletting escalated yesterday, with the sacking of two senior officials in charge of handling national security issues.

Former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and lobbyist Matthew Freedman were both fired in "a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law and close adviser", says the New York Times.

"There are people who are in and people who are out. And the people who have been asked to move on have some relationship with Chris Christie," said Rogers.

Kushner has a difficult history with Christie. His father was prosecuted by then-US Attorney Christie in 2004 for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions, says CNN.

Speculation continues over whom Trump will choose for the top jobs in his new administration.

Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016

Among the candidates being discussed is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is "frontrunner for the prize job of secretary of state", despite having "no foreign policy experience beyond strong advocacy for the war on terror following the 11 September 2001 terror attacks", The Guardian says.

Blood relatives look set to feature prominently. "Trump has taken the unprecedented step of requesting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, receive top-secret clearance to join him for his Presidential Daily Briefings," reports NBC News.

US election: How did the polls get it so wrong on Trump?

10 November

One of the biggest reasons Donald Trump's win on Tuesday was so shocking is that pollsters failed to predict he would end up in the White House.

Individual and aggregated surveys put Democrat Hillary Clinton ahead for the vast majority of the campaign.

The predictions were not completely wrong on the popular vote, however. According to the New York Times, the latest tally shows Clinton won 230,000 more votes than her Republican rival - 47.7 per cent to Trump's 47.5 per cent.

But when it came to the Electoral College, he was clearly in the lead, winning 279 votes to 228.
"Pollsters flubbed the 2016 presidential election in seismic fashion," says USA Today, adding that Trump's victory dealt a "devastating blow to the credibility of the nation's leading pollsters, calling into question their mathematical models, assumptions and survey methods".

It will take a while to figure out exactly why the pollsters got it wrong, says opinion-poll analysis blog FiveThirtyEight, which had put Trump's chances of winning at 28.6 per cent. There could have been a "systematic polling error" or a shift towards Trump among the electorate after many of the final surveys ended.

Some polls also finished before the "full effects" of FBI director James Comey's letter to Congress could be felt, it adds.

Pollsters interviewed by FiveThirtyEight were divided over whether Trump voters were "too shy" to tell the truth, although some noted he did better in surveys conducted by a recorded voice rather than a live one.

Others believe the Democrats suffered from a lower-than-expected turnout.

The USC Dornsife/LA Times poll, which consistently showed a better result for Trump, faced much criticism during the campaign. The surveys, carried out online, asked respondents to rate their level of commitment to their candidate on a scale of one to 100.

"Some of the worst failures of polling have come about because pollsters, whether deliberately or not, converged on a single view of an election, in what is often referred to as 'herding'," claims the LA Times.

"With all the challenges that polling faces, it's important to test different methods and approaches to surveying public opinion. Some tests will work, others won't, but the only way to know is to try."