Trump’s long list of global trade deals, agreements exited or renegotiated

President Donald Trump campaigned on deals. Making deals — like an Israel-Palestine peace accord. And breaking deals — like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran Deal, both of which he labeled disasters.

Since entering the Oval Office in 2016, Trump — a self-professed negotiator —has delivered on many of his promises to abandon international pacts that previous administrations had authorized.

As the United States plans for an early exit from a key, Cold War-era nuclear agreement with Russia, here is a look at some of the landmark international deals, partnerships, and organizations the Trump White House has spurned.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Just days after assuming office, Trump delivered on a campaign promise and announced that the U.S. would be pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries that took seven years to negotiate and was signed by then-President Barack Obama in his second term. Its goals were to boost exports, remove tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and open access to more markets.

It was a turn toward protectionist measures. By abandoning a deal that would give American companies an opportunity to seek cheap labor abroad, Trump signaled that his priority is to reduce the number of jobs leaving the country.

In a memorandum announcing the move, Trump favored bilateral negations and said they were to be pursued whenever possible to “promote American industry, protect American workers, and raise American wages.”

The Paris Agreement

On June 1, 2017, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, an international climate accord that the U.S. signed under the Obama administration that aims to combat global warming by gradually reducing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which come from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

Trump cited "onerous energy restriction” on the U.S. and the possible job losses it could cost as reasons for dropping out of the deal. Industrial sectors such as cement, coal, and iron and steel, Trump said, could be affected by America’s inclusion in the accord. He said there were plans to begin negotiations to reenter the deal or enter an “entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers."

Trump said the deal "punishes the United States," which he claimed was the world leader in environmental protection, without imposing any "meaningful obligations" on the world's leading polluters. Historically, the U.S. has ranked as one of the worst emitters of carbon dioxide, but it’s been noted as recently as this year that its contribution to CO2 levels globally has been on the decline.

After Syria signed on to the accord in 2017, the U.S. became the only country in the world that wasn’t a party to the landmark deal.

The Iran Deal

Throughout the 2016 presidential election campaign, then-candidate Trump promised that once he was in office he would tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran — better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The president called it the “worst deal ever.” Pushed into passage by the Obama Administration, the Iran nuclear deal reduced economic sanctions against Iran as long as the country ended its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In May, the White House announced that because the JCPOA “failed to protect America's national security interests" it would be pulling out of the historic deal.

The White House accused the Iranian regime of archiving its past nuclear weapons work and continuing to enrich uranium and develop ballistic missiles. The administration left some room for a new deal to be struck but said that a return to the negotiating table would depend on a number of preconditions such as the Iranian regime completely abandoning their intent to develop nuclear weapons—something Trump alleges they never stopped pursuing.

In the meantime, the administration has renewed sanctions against Iran. These measures, according to the White House, would target several of the country’s economic sectors such as energy, petrochemical, and finance.

UNESCO

In Oct. 2017, the State Department announced that the U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO, which serves a number of functions around the globe such as promoting literacy and protecting historic and cultural sites through the World Heritage Centre.

It was a symbolic gesture on part of the Trump administration, seeing as the Obama White House cut off funding for UNESCO in 2011, after the group voted to include Palestine as a member. The reasons the State Department gave for leaving the organization include what it views as mounting debt within the organization, a need for “fundamental reform,” and continuing bias against Israel.

NAFTA

On Aug. 27, President Trump ended nearly 25 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, the trade pact linking U.S., Canada, and Mexico. He announced a new, bilateral agreement with Mexico known as the U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement.

Canada was initially left out of the new deal, which was designed to replace the NAFTA, an agreement that Trump says carried bad connotations. Signed in 1993, NAFTA eliminated tariffs on most goods traded among the continent's three largest countries and made it easier for companies in those countries to move goods across borders. The old trade pact is often blamed for the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico and the deindustrialization of the American economy.

The new deal includes controversial stipulations such as the “rule of origin,” which requires that cars must be built with at least 75 percent parts made in North America (up from 62.5 percent under NAFTA) and that 40 to 45 percent of an automobile must be manufactured by employees earning at least $16 an hour.

In September, little more than a month after the U.S. and Mexico struck their deal, Canada announced it was joining the agreement. The text of the new deal is expected to be signed by the end of November.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

On Oct. 20, Trump announced to reporters his intention to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 1987 pact between the United States and Russia that required both countries to destroy ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 and 3,400 miles, along with any supporting equipment.

Trump claims that Russia has violated the Cold War-era treaty, set to expire in two years, and said that the U.S. will begin weapons development unless Russia and China—who is not a party to the pact—agree to a new deal.

Days after the announcement, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and said there was no chance the Trump administration would reverse its decision. Bolton suggested the INF treaty was outmoded.

"There's a new strategic reality out there," Bolton said. "This is a cold war bilateral ballistic-missile-related treaty — in a multipolar ballistic-missile world."

United Nations Human Rights Council

Calling it a "cesspool of political bias," Nikki Haley, then-Ambassador to the United Nations, announced in June that the United States was pulling out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, leaving the U.S. without a vote and sidelined from the Geneva-based group that aims to promote human rights around the world.

The Trump administration made the move amid criticism surrounding its practice of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. The Human Rights Council called on the White House to end the practice because it "runs counter to human rights standards."

UNRWA

In August, the Trump Administration said that it would halt U.S. contributions to the United Nations’ aid program for Palestinian refugees. The decision is part of the administration’s efforts to rein in foreign aid and restrict assistance to the West Bank and Gaza. The move came one week after the White House revoked more than $200 million in economic aid to the Palestinian territories.

The U.S. is "no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs," said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The U.N. agency provides health care to approximately 3 million Palestinians, education assistance to 500,000 children, micro-loans to another 400,000 beneficiaries, among other aid.