The United States backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership may cause repercussions in international trade, as member countries would probably gravitate toward China, an analyst said Wednesday.

• READ: What now for the Trans-Pacific Partnership after US exit?

Foreign relations expert Richard Heydarian said this would be an intersting development, considering that China was once a socialist nation but may well now be the "vanguard of globalization."

"This is strange because the TPP was a strategy of Obama to push back against growing Chinese economic preponderance in East Asia. Now, China could be the leader of that because they’re the biggest economy and the biggest trader in the world," he said in an interview with "Mornings@ANC."

Heydarian, author of the book "Asia's New Battlefield: The US, China and the Struggle for the Western Pacific," added that the United States has long performed the role of being the sheriff of global order and, if the nation gives this role up, it will create "a lot of ripple effects."