Trump takes harder line on trade
PRESIDENT Donald Trump gave a spirited airing of his “America First” doctrine in a speech to AsiaPacific leaders yesterday, vowing his country will “no longer toler unfair trade, closed markets and intellectual property theft, as he seeks to rewrite the rules of global commerce.
In a speech that by turns lavished praise on Asia-Pacific nations and accused them of undercutting the world’s largest economy, he said US interests had been ill-served by the architecture of global trade.
“I am always going to put America first the same way I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first,” he said as he took aim at the World Trade Organisation for failing to police free trade infringements.
In a day bringing together the big hitters of politics and business, Trump will share the venue with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and China’s Xi Jinping.
Xi is also set to deliver a speech, likely to present a competing narrative casting China as the leader of global free trade, a role vacated by America.
China announced yesterday it will further open the country’s financial markets to foreign firms, a key demand from the US and other global investors who have long complained about strict limits on access to the giant economy.
Trump arrives fresh from trips to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, where he sought to build a consensus against North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
The White House ruled out any meeting between Trump and Putin, with Russia accused of interfering in the US election last year that brought the billionaire one-time reality TV star to power.
Trump election campaign aides are under intense legal scrutiny in the US over possible ties to the Kremlin, but Russia denies any chicanery linked to his political rise.
The rise of Trump as leader of the world’s biggest economy risks unpicking decades of US-led economic diplomacy that webbed global economies together with free trade and low tariff pacts.
He has pledged to wring a better deal from countries the US has large trade deficits with – including China – and bring jobs back to the hollowed out industrial heartland that voted for him.
But proponents of free trade have looked on aghast as Trump tears up the rule book and anti-globalisation arguments ricochet through the US and Europe.
Trump has already pulled Washington’s support from the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact and vowed to renegotiate Nafta, a trade deal between the US, Canada and Mexico.
The annual Apec Summit is one of the largest gatherings on the annual diplomatic calendar, bringing together scores of world leaders and more than 2 000 CEOs.
Apec represents 21 Pacific Rim economies, the equivalent of 60% of global GDP and covering nearly three billion people, and has pushed for freer trade since its inception in 1989. — AFP