China-backed trade pact gains as Trump threatens to ditch TPP

DAVOS AFP /Jan19, 2017- Asia will push ahead with a Chinese-supported free trade agreement if Donald Trump follows through on pledges to ditch the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), global leaders in Davos were told Thursday.   

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, a panel of regional experts said Asia must be prepared for a world in which the United States will take a back seat in global trade while China assumes a bigger leadership role.   

Trump, who takes office on Friday, has promised to tear up existing free-trade deals and withdraw from the TPP negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.   Trump has also said he will focus on creating employment at home and threatened to impose punitive measures on companies that move business overseas at the expense of local jobs.   

 “We really have to prepare ourselves for a very different world where America -- instead of becoming the cheerleader for trade -- becomes in some ways the biggest obstacle to trade,” said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.   

Mahbubani praised Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at Davos on Tuesday in which he warned against blaming globalisation for the world’s ills or retreating behind protectionist walls.