South America

The market access negotiations [of the Trans-Pacific Partnership] have been conducted bilaterally, so there is a fair amount of bilateralism embedded in the [TPP] agreement, but then you had all the benefits of multilateralism added to that in terms of rules that apply across the board. The problem with the bilaterals is we actually have tried that approach and we found that it is extremely time-consuming. So, none of these new bilaterals being discussed in the Trump administration are going to materialize overnight. They take a lot of time to negotiate—years, probably—and they tend to generate rules that are idiosyncratic.

If we [the United States] have less access to these [international] markets, we're going to have fewer opportunities to create jobs in the export sector. Also, if we decide to tax imports, there are a lot of people in this country dependent on imports and we're also going to see people lose their jobs.