ePaper_2nd Edition_November 16, 2016

Business 15
DT
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Asia-Pacific
leaders to
talk trade in a
Trump world
• AFP, Lima
Top world leaders will meet
this week to chart a future for
free trade - almost a dirty word
in a world upended by Donald
Trump’s victory in the US presidential
election.
US President Barack Obama,
China’s Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo
Abe and Russia’s Vladimir Putin
will be among the leaders in the
room in Lima, Peru for the annual
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit from Thursday to
Sunday.
APEC summits, which gather
leaders from 21 Pacific Rim economies,
are meant to forge unity
on free trade in a region that
accounts for nearly 60% of the
global economy and nearly 40%
of the world’s population.
But this year’s event may be
unlike any other, coming on the
heels of Trump’s shock win in the
November 8 election.
The brash billionaire has unleashed
deep uncertainty about
the postwar world order with his
attacks on free trade, immigration
and the US role as “policeman
of the world.”
By successfully tapping the
anger of working-class whites
who feel left behind by globalization,
Trump has amplified a
sense of malaise that began in
June with Britain’s “Brexit” vote
to leave the European Union - another
shock victory for a populist
politics of disillusionment with
an increasingly borderless world.
Obama’s ‘rebalance’ in doubt
It risks being an awkward summit
for Obama, who will wrap up his
final foreign tour as president in
Peru after stops in Greece and
Germany.
Obama, who campaigned
against Trump as “unfit” to succeed
him, must now reassure colleagues
that a Trump presidency
will not in fact spell disaster.
Leaders will be looking for
signals on the future of Obama’s
much-vaunted “rebalance” to
Asia and the Pacific.
American allies such as Japan
and South Korea are worried the
Republican president-elect will
cut back the US military, economic
and diplomatic presence in the
region -- leaving them exposed to
a dominant China and belligerent
North Korea.
Trump has caused concern in
the region by suggesting Japan
and South Korea get nuclear weapons
to defend themselves, calling
climate change a Chinese “hoax,”
and warmly embracing Putin. •