Despite the superficial conviviality of Donald Trump’s whistle-stop tour through Asia this week, we watched first-hand the dysfunctional reality of the US’ disengagement from the world of multilateralism.
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Trump delivered a speech at the US-Asean Summit in Malaysia, but skipped the main Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ meeting in South Korea. Overall, he was more interested in cutting bilateral deals on the sidelines of the summits.
In Malaysia, he finalised unilateral tariff agreements or frameworks with a handful of Association of Southeast Asian Nations members, but the substance of his discussions was elsewhere: rare-earths memorandums of understanding with Malaysia and Thailand, and a self-congratulatory celebration of his peacemaking skills in mediating an end to the Thailand-Cambodia conflict.
The week also saw the first-ever meeting of leaders of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which has Asean at its core, but also includes China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
The US is not part of RCEP, the world’s largest free-trade agreement, which covers 30 per cent of the world’s population and almost a third of global gross domestic product. For a unilateralist like Trump, such a grouping is clearly uninteresting.
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Trump’s approach stands in contrast to that of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who spoke of the need to “jointly uphold free trade and the multilateral trading system, oppose all forms of protectionism, and further advance the process of regional economic integration”.
China, Japan, South Korea meet Asean bloc
China, Japan, South Korea meet Asean bloc