HOUSE OVERSIGHT 026644 exchanged rising economic and political inequality for overall prosperity. We have simply reached a point where this rising inequality is no longer sustainable in democracies. This is not too different from what Beijing has been struggling with — to slow down the headline economic growth rate in exchange for more balance in various parts of the economy, in order to allow its development to be more sustainable. The parallels in the West seem quite clear to me. Fighting against this shift in the West, as most mainstream media seem to be doing, is tantamount to those in China who are fighting against the economic slowdown. (1) TPP is effectively dead, even though there are some who are urging that TPP goes ahead without the US. But I think multilateral trade pacts are in jeopardy. The Trump Administration still wants to have trade arrangements, but they will be bilateral and done with countries deemed friendly to the US. (2) The UK is in a great position to deal with the Trump Administration because all the UK needs is a bilateral trade arrangement that won't take as long to work out, compared to a multilateral trade arrangement. The UK just went from the 'back of the queue' (which was an insulting declaration by President Obama, conspicuously using the word 'queue' to make sure the Brits understood him) to the 'front of the line.' (3) China was never a part of the TPP discussions. In fact, TPP was designed from day one to marginalise China, to replace the current trade arrangement based on WTO rules to something that puts China at a disadvantage. This is why Beijing is not unhappy with the Trump Administration's desire to terminate the TPP discussions. (4) 'America First' does not only mean 'world second,' that the US will take actions to benefit the US even if these policies come at the expense of the rest of the world. It also means that policies will be aimed at addressing the inequality and inequity in the US, even