Former U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday entered the debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, hosting a forum at his presidential library extolling his successor’s Asian free trade deal.
Bush, who signed several such accords during his two terms in office, met with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman before the event to promote the strategic benefits of the agreement.
President Barack Obama is still pushing for Congress to approve the 12-country TPP following the Nov. 8 presidential election, even though both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton oppose it.
Bush, who has largely stayed out of the campaign – in which Trump’s anti-trade rhetoric fueled his rise to the Republican nomination – did not attend the forum at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.
“I’m very grateful for him welcoming me to this institute and having the institute host this important conversation,” Froman told the audience of largely business people after his meeting with Bush. “And I’m very grateful for his support of free trade as well.”
Ken Hersh, director of the Bush Institute, called TPP “a no-brainer on a whole host of fronts.”
via Reuters
