Trump rips up Republican trade orthodoxy, saying he will cancel TPP treaty and brand China a currency manipulator

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday that if elected, he would withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade liberalisation initiative and label China a “currency manipulator”.

And in just a matter of minutes, Trump set fire to 30 years of Republican orthodoxy on trade.

In his strongest campaign trade comments to date, Trump made a clear break with his party, which for decades has stood behind the business interests that supported a freer flow of goods and services across borders.

He ripped a pending agreement with Pacific Rim trading partners and vowed to renegotiate the long-standing accord the US has had with Mexico and Canada.

“The TPP would be the death blow for American manufacturing...It would further open our markets to aggressive currency cheaters,” Trump said in a speech in Pennsylvania, while speculating that China “will enter the TPP through the back door at a later date.”

Trump said the US-led pact involving 12 Pacific Rim countries such as Japan, Australia and Vietnam “would also force American workers to compete directly against workers from Vietnam, one of the lowest wage countries on Earth.”

“There is no ways to ‘fix’ the TPP. We need bilateral trade deals,” he said. “I am going to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has not yet been ratified.”