In a brief YouTube video released on Monday, President-elect Donald Trump spoke directly to the American public and outlined plans for his first months in office.
Shying away from his more controversial campaign trail promises like the U.S.–Mexico border wall, Trump emphasized that the principle underlying policy decisions of his administration was “putting America first” for “everyone.”
“Whether it’s producing steel, building cars, or curing disease,” he said, “I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here in our great homeland America. Creating wealth and jobs for American workers.”
There are a range of policies Trump outlined in the video that he claimed would re-establish the middles class and “make America great again.” Within his first 100 days in office, he has promised to investigate the visa system, remove a host of energy regulations to create more jobs, and clean up Washington by introducing a five-year ban on lobbying. An enormous part of this plan is the withdrawal of the U.S from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international trade treaty that the Obama administration had been working hard to seal.
The aim of the agreement was to create a new single market that would standardize tariffs and regulations across the Pacific, similar to the European Union. The economic area would include 12 nations, make up 40 percent of the world economy, and cover 800 million people. Trump calls the treaty “a potential disaster for [the] country” and explained how he will abandon TPP in favor of bilateral treaties that could be leveraged better for U.S interest.
A U.S withdrawal would likely collapse TPP, but if a Chinese strategic intervention were to save the treaty, it’s feared the U.S could find itself an outlier on the far edge of the biggest single market in the world. That, in turn, would likely make American bilateral agreements very difficult.
The video lasts just over two and a half minutes, and Trump attempts to reassure those watching that his transition to power is going well, despite reports to the contrary.
Interestingly, the president-elect has again opted to communicate via new media channels rather than through traditional media outlets. Trump has remained cautiously guarded in his approach to the press, after openly clashing with journalists during the election. He has not held a formal press conference in the two weeks since the announcement of his election victory but instead has offered tidbits by way of social media.
It appears that this way of addressing the American public while keeping distance from the mainstream media will continue, and Trump has promised more of these kind of videos in the coming days.
Trump putting out video while refusing to speak on record or give a press conference was a test for the press. This is not promising. pic.twitter.com/aESNKQwA56
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 22, 2016