President Donald Trump last week embraced components of global trade deals he has rejected in the past, in a preliminary agreement with the European Union, American and European trade experts and diplomats said on July 26.

Speaking to a crowd of steelworkers in Granite City, Illinois, President Trump touted a “historic agreement” with the European Union, and said his administration’s tough trade strategy is working, and making up for unfair trade deals in the past. “This is the time to straighten out the worst trade deals ever made by any country on earth ever in history,” he said.

But the deals the administration has reached fall short of Trump’s broad aim of rebalancing US trade relations with the rest of the world — and in some instances adopt elements of past agreements the president is intent on breaking.

President Trump’s agreement this week with the European Union and a renegotiation earlier this year of a trade deal with South Korea bear similarities to deals that were in place or being negotiated before President Trump took office, analysts and diplomats said.

A key piece of the agreement President Trump reached with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to ease escalating trade tensions and forestall further tariffs called for both sides to “work together toward zero tariffs” on non-auto industrial goods, such as aircraft engines and turbines.

That was also a goal of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, a proposed deal that the United States and the European Union were negotiating under the Obama administration and that subsequently withered.

“There does seem to be a lot of similarity in what Trump wants to achieve and what the TTIP tried to accomplish,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

Last Wednesday’s joint statement from Mr Juncker and President Trump also called for easing trade barriers in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals, aims that were part of TTIP, said Anthony Gardner, who was US ambassador to the European Union during the Obama administration.

The Trump administration’s reworking of a trade deal with South Korea included some improvements for Washington, including a Korean agreement to restrict its steel exports to the United States, trade experts said.

But Jeff Moon, who was assistant US trade representative to China during the Obama administration, said the new deal was largely similar to the previous one, “because it wasn’t that bad a deal.”

During his hour-long speech at a US Steel facility in Granite City, President Trump gave a provocative, forceful defence of his approach to economic and foreign policy, arguing that his hardball tactics had worked with China, the European Union and North Korea.

It is a message the White House is trying to reinforce after many business leaders and Republicans in recent days expressed concern that President Trump’s trade agenda was starting to backfire.

Midway through the corporate earnings season, some of the country’s largest companies have reported that they are feeling the pinch of the Trump administration’s trade war.

The executives, who lead companies across a broad array of industries, identified the tariffs — especially on aluminium and steel — as a potential drag on profits.

They said the import taxes could lead to higher prices for consumers and force companies to make major changes in production lines, including moving some operations out of China.

General Motors, Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson and Brown-Forman have all warned that the tariffs could push them to increase prices.

Republicans also have raised concerns about President Trump’s trade strategy.

President Trump said that US policy before he became president was “stupid” and that the economy during the Obama administration was “going to hell.” At one point, he said countries used to look at the country as the “big, fat, sloppy United States.”

The rosy picture President Trump painted of his agenda was only a partial reflection of where things stand. He characterised the EU negotiations, which began in earnest last Wednesday, as nearly completed, but many differences remain. And relations with China are still chilly and uncertain amid an escalation of tariffs.

In a room full of steelworkers in a revived steel town, those nuances weren’t as important as the momentum President Trump said he was fuelling. US Steel executives and employees are strong supporters of the tariffs Trump imposed on steel and aluminium imports this year.

Bob Edwards, 60, was rehired by the Granite City steel plant in January 2017 after having lost his job 11 months earlier.

“A regular paycheck and a booming economy — when you are doing something, you are not worried about everything else,” said Mr Edwards, whose ponytail was tucked under his orange hard hat. He said he’s a strong union supporter and also a strong Trump supporter.

—The Washington Post’s Quentin Ariès in Brussels, James McAuley in Paris, Gabriela Martinez in Mexico City, and Erica Werner and Jeff Stein in Washington contributed to this report.

— The Washington Post Service

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 30th, 2018