Trump is opposed in principle to multilateral agreements. He is so simple minded he thinks all agreements should be unilateral and pursued from a position of strength to exploit (which fits his Real Estate experience). He’s not really a very deep thinker. Also, the TPP was seen in terms of NAFTA in the Midwest (who imagine NAFTA is why industrial jobs largely replaced by automation disappeared), and since it was hated, it was useful to campaign against.
TPP did have issues and I’m glad it was dropped, though it wasn’t dropped out of any thoughtful policy analysis, just a poorly informed knee-jerk that accidentally happened to hit a target that needed a kick.
