If the US wants to challenge Chinese dominance of Asia, then why did Trump insist on the US leaving TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), since TPP was designed to limit China's influence in Asia?

In 2016 the Atlantic published an article that interprets Trump’s line of thinking in a very telling account for pulling out of TPP. Here is an excerpt of that article:

“If the U.S. does not want to hold other countries accountable for better labor standards, another way to attract corporations to hire Americans would be to lower labor or regulatory standards at home. This is something Trump and the GOP have pledged to do. They say getting rid of some regulations, which include occupational safety rules and environmental laws, will make it cheaper to do business here. But that’s not something that is going to purely benefit U.S. workers, even if it does result in more jobs. It will make workplaces more dangerous and the environment more polluted.

The U.S. needs to figure out how to entice businesses to set up shop here and employ thousands of American workers. This is a daunting challenge. Republicans seem to be going down the path of making labor even cheaper here, a route that may bring jobs but not ones that can provide for a secure middle-class life. The alternative path—making foreign workers more expensive—has just been closed.”

Trump is contradicting 3,000 years of mankind progress towards the betterment of societies and trying to outsmart the collective mind’s knowledge and experience cultivated during this developmental period which only reveals his ignorance and stupidity as he’s trying to erase history in his attempt to fly the overflown Phoenix again!