Ex-World Bank president: Congress must crack down on Trump’s trade policies

The former president of the World Bank on Wednesday urged Congress to act against President Trump’s “shipwreck” of a trade policy.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Robert Zoellick, who served as president of the World Bank from 2007-2012, wrote that “Trump’s impulses are strategically incoherent.”

“Congress can no longer wait for Mr. Trump to speak and act sensibly,” Zoellick said. “It needs to assert its constitutional powers over trade to stop this president’s destruction.”

Zoellick’s commentary comes after Trump confirmed last week that he is speaking with advisers about the U.S.’s free trade agreement with South Korea.

{mosads}Zoellick, who also served as the U.S. trade representative under former President George W. Bush, criticized Trump’s “attack” on the trade agreement.

“Especially in Asia, where respect and reliability in personal relations are valued highly, Mr. Trump’s shocking slap to America’s Korean friends will be noted and long remembered,” he wrote. 

“Combined with his withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the president’s attack on the Korean FTA signals America’s unreliability as an economic partner. Asian countries will inevitably question whether America’s economic retreat is consistent with U.S. security commitments across the Pacific.”

Zoellick said Trump’s policies “will not reverse bilateral trade deficits” and that he will seek to get rid of “’bad deals’” to place the blame elsewhere.

“He will destroy agreements to keep faith with his own false arguments—and to save himself,” Zoellick wrote.