Japan has cautiously welcomed the news that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

œIf this means that President Trump is correctly evaluating the significance and effects of the TPP, it™s something we want to welcome, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan™s trade minister, said Friday. He added that the trade pact is œas delicate as something made of glass, making it difficult to renegotiate any part of the agreement.

Trump ordered his top economic and trade advisers Thursday to look into rejoining the Pacific-rim trade pact that he abandoned last year three days after taking power.

Farm-state lawmakers said after a White House meeting on agricultural trade that Trump told his economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to weigh the benefits of re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership ” a deal struck by the Obama administration.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican critic of Trump's trade policies, said that at one point in the meeting, the president turned to Kudlow and said, "Larry, go get it done." Sasse represents a Midwestern farm state. He called Trump's change of mind on the Pacific trade deal "good news." He said the president has consistently "reaffirmed the idea that TPP would be easier for us to join now."

Trump has often said he prefers bilateral trade deals instead of multinational pacts, believing the U.S. does not fare well in bigger trade deals. It was not immediately clear why he now is open to rejoining the TPP.

Source: voanews