APEC nations find common ground amid pandemic

KUALA LUMPUR — Leaders from the Asia-pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including U.S. President Donald Trump, pledged Friday to work toward free, open and nondiscriminatory trade and investment to revive their coronavirus-battered economies.

The leaders cast aside differences to issue their first joint statement since 2017, in which they agreed to further deepen regional integration by working toward a massive free trade agreement involving the 21 APEC economies.

This year’s host, Malaysian Prime

Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, said at a news conference that the U.s.-china trade war that had hampered talks in the past has “been eclipsed” by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With growth in the Asia-pacific region expected to slump 2.7 percent this year, from 3.6 percent growth in 2019, he said APEC’S focus was on accelerating economic recovery and developing an affordable vaccine.

APEC, whose members account for 60 percent of global GDP, also “pledged to refrain from backtracking and resorting to protectionist measures to keep markets and borders open,” he added.

The APEC leaders’ meeting was the first since 2018, after last year’s host, Chile, canceled the annual summit because of violent domestic protests. But at the Papua New Guinea summit in 2018, APEC leaders failed to issue a joint statement for the first time amid a U.s.-china dispute over trade policies.

Trump’s participation Friday, his first since 2017, came as a surprise as he challenges the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, won by

Joe Biden. Last weekend, Trump skipped the East Asia Summits and withdrew from speaking at an APEC CEO meeting earlier Friday.

Trump, whose “America First” policy has alienated trading partners, addressed the meeting but his speech wasn’t immediately available.