At a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging nations and the European Union, Steven Mnuchin, attending his first major international gathering as Treasury secretary, signaled
that American policy would follow the campaign promises made by President Trump to put “America first” and review existing trade agreements to seek better deals for the United States.
U. S. Breaks With Allies Over Trade Issues Amid Trump’s ‘America First’ Vows -
By JACK EWINGMARCH 18, 2017
BADEN-BADEN, Germany — The United States broke with other large industrial nations over trade on Saturday as the Trump administration rejected concerns among allies about spreading protectionism and made clear
that it would seek new approaches to managing global commerce.
But he added, “We want to re-examine certain agreements.”
“Balanced trade has to be what’s good for us and what’s good for other people,” Mr. Mnuchin said.
The best that the Group of 20 participants could come up with on Saturday was this:
“We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies.”
Mr. Mnuchin argued that the news media’s focus on the language of the communiqué was overblown and said
that the discussions in Baden Baden had been congenial.
For Asian and European officials, many of them meeting their Trump administration counterparts for the first time, it was a startling lesson in how Mr. Trump
and his team are overturning long-held assumptions about international commerce.
“We thought that it was very important for the communiqué to reflect what we discussed here,” Mr. Mnuchin said at a news conference on Saturday.