World at trade ‘pivot point,’ Trudeau warns in China
GUANGZHOU, China — The world is at a “pivot point” and will fail unless countries embrace free trade and elevate their citizens who have been left behind by globalization, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Wednesday.
Trudeau delivered that dire, anti-protectionist message to a high-powered business audience at a major international conference in the bustling southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Trudeau came to the Fortune Global Forum, a Davos-style gathering of the world’s business elite, to sell Canada as good place for foreign investment, but he went off script and delivered a stern warning about the dangers of allowing protectionism and inequality to flourish.
“We are at a pivot point in the world right now, where we decide whether we work together in an open and confident way and succeed or whether we all falter separately and isolated,” he said.
“As that anxiety spreads, people start to turn inwards. They start to close off. They start to get fearful,” he added. “If that continues to happen, make no mistake about it, we will all lose.”
Trudeau didn’t mention the Donald Trump administration in Washington, but he had already spoken out in China on the need to save the North American Free Trade Agreement from demise.
He delivered the message to a gathering of business leaders meeting under the banner of “Openness and Innovation: Shaping the Global Economy,” that brought together the chief executives from the world’s biggest companies.
He singled out China as a kindred economic spirit, saying it is “well aligned” with Canada to fight for liberalized trade.
Trudeau renewed his friendship with billionaire Jack Ma, the founder of the Asian e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba, who praised the prime minister for a policy that will speed the Canadian visa process for skilled workers.
Canada and China are working toward starting formal free-trade talks, a task that has been given to International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who stayed behind in Beijing.
Trudeau capped a whirlwind day to take part in a ceremony at the Canadian consulate to mark the 28th anniversary of the 1989 massacre at Montreal’s École Polytechnique.