Donald Trump pulls US out of Trans-Pacific deal, loosening Asia ties

January 24, 2017

Washington, Jan 24: US President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday, distancing the country from its Asian allies, as China's influence in the region rises.

TransPacific

Fulfilling a campaign pledge to end American involvement in the 2015 pact, Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office pulling the United States out of the 12-nation TPP.

Trump, who wants to boost US manufacturing, said he would seek one-on-one trade deals with countries that would allow the United States to quickly terminate them in 30 days "if somebody misbehaves."

"We're going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country," the Republican president said as he met with union leaders in the White House's Roosevelt Room.

The TPP accord, backed heavily by US business, was negotiated by former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration but never approved by Congress.

Obama had framed TPP, which excluded China, as an effort to write Asia's trade rules before Beijing could, establishing US economic leadership in the region as part of his "pivot to Asia."

China has proposed a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and has also championed the Southeast Asian-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Trump has sparked worries in Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific with his opposition to the TPP and his campaign demands for US allies to pay more for their security.

His trade stance mirrors a growing feeling among Americans that international trade deals have hurt the US job market. Republicans have long held the view that free trade is a must, but that mood has been changing.

"It's going to be very difficult to fight that fight," said Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow who was domestic policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. "Trump is reflecting a trend that has been apparent for many years."

Harry Kazianis, director of defence studies at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said Trump must now find an alternative way to reassure allies in Asia.

"This could include multiple bilateral trade agreements. Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam should be approached first as they are key to any new Asia strategy that President Trump will enact," he said.

Trump is also working to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to provide more favourable terms to the United States, telling reporters he would meet leaders of NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada to get the process started.

BUSINESS LEADERS

The new president met with a dozen American manufacturers at the White House on Monday, pledging to slash regulations and cut corporate taxes - but warning them he would take action on trade deals he felt were unfair.

Trump, who took office on Friday, has promised to bring factories back to the United States - an issue he said helped him win the Nov. 8 election. He has not hesitated to call out by name companies he thinks should bring outsourced production back home.

He said those businesses that choose to move plants outside the country would pay a price. "We are going to be imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in," Trump said.

He asked the group of chief executives from companies including Ford Motor Co, Dell Technologies Inc, Tesla Motors Inc and others to make recommendations in 30 days to stimulate manufacturing, Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris told reporters.

Liveris said the CEOs discussed the border tax "quite a bit" with Trump, explaining "the sorts of industry that might be helped or hurt by that."

"Look: I would take the president at his word here. He's not going to do anything to harm competitiveness," Liveris said. "He's going to actually make us all more competitive."

At part of the meeting observed by reporters, Trump provided no details on how the border tax would work.

The US dollar fell to a seven-week low against a basket of other major world currencies on Monday, and global stock markets were shaky amid investor concerns about Trump's protectionist rhetoric.

"A company that wants to fire all of its people in the United States, and build some factory someplace else, and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the United States - that's not going to happen," he said.

CUT TAXES AND REGULATIONS

The president told the CEOs he would like to cut corporate taxes to the 15% to 20% range, down from current statutory levels of 35% - a pledge that will require cooperation from the Republican-led US Congress.

But he said business leaders have told him that reducing regulations is even more important.

"We think we can cut regulations by 75%. Maybe more," Trump told business leaders.

"When you want to expand your plant, or when Mark wants to come in and build a big massive plant, or when Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special – you're going to have your approvals really fast," Trump said, referring to Mark Fields, CEO of Ford.

Fields said he was encouraged by the tone of the meeting.

"I know I come out with a lot of confidence that the president is very, very serious on making sure that the United States economy is going to be strong and have policies - tax, regulatory or trade - to drive that," he said.

Trump told the executives that companies were welcome to negotiate with governors to move production between states.

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News Network
May 21,2020

Canberra, May 21: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, are looking forward to deepening the countries' strategic relationship, with both sides expected to sign a range of pacts from defence to trade in strategic sectors amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual summit, scheduled to take place on June 4, both leaders are expected to ramp up efforts to diversify Australia's export markets and find trusted suppliers of vital products and components, a local newspaper, The Australian reported on Tuesday.

The new agreements will focus on reliable supply chains in key strategic sectors, including medical goods, technology and critical minerals, amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

The leaders will seal a new defence agreement allowing reciprocal access to bases and co-operation on military technology projects, while a new education partnership will be on the table to help overcome Australian university reliance on Chinese students.

The talks in terms of strategic convergence, now have greater significance as COVID-19 exacerbates the strategic contest between the US and China, and forces like-minded countries to seek out reliable partners.

Australian farmers could also benefit, with talks underway on expanding agricultural exports to India, including barley, as China throws up new trade barriers, media reports stated.

The virtual summit follows the cancellation of Morrison's planned state visit to India in January due to the bushfires.

Morrison said last year, ahead of his planned visit, that India was "a natural partner for Australia", referring to the countries' "shared values" -- a point of differentiation with China.

Former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Peter Varghese, who wrote a landmark report on the bilateral relationship in 2018, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that India would be even more important to Australia in the post-COVID world. "If one of the lessons from COVID is that countries need to spread their risk, then finding new markets or building up existing markets is a crucial part of that," he added.

Varghese noted that India, a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue along with Australia, Japan and the US, was a vital strategic partner to Australia in helping "constrain China's ambitions to be the predominant power".

"That shared objective between Australia and India of not wanting to see the region dominated by China is a key component of building up our geopolitical relationship," he told The Australian.

The summit also follows recent talks between Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the pandemic response and Australia's call for an independent inquiry, which was overwhelmingly backed at the World Health Assembly on Tuesday.

Australia wants to support India to develop a domestic critical minerals processing industry, which would provide Western nations with an alternative to sourcing the materials from China.

Meanwhile, India has strong expertise as a manufacturer of drugs and medical equipment, while Australia is a centre of biomedical research, opening the possibility for closer co-operation in the key sector, the media reported further.

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News Network
May 7,2020

Islamabad, May 7: Pakistan's COVID-19 cases have crossed 24,000 after 1,523 new infections were detected, while the death toll has jumped to 564 with 38 more people succumbing to the coronavirus, health officials said on Thursday.

Even as the country is seeing an increase in the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities, Prime Minister Imran Khan will discuss the easing of lockdown restrictions with his top aides on Thursday.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the 24,073 total cases, Punjab reported 9,077, Sindh 8,640, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,712, Balochistan 1,495, Islamabad 521, Gilgit-Baltistan 388 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 76 cases.

After 38 more deaths on Wednesday, the total coronavirus patient death toll jumped to 564. Another 6,464 have recovered. A total of 1,523 new patients were added in a single day, the ministry.

So far, 244,778 tests have been conducted, including 12,196 in the last 24 hours, it said.

Prime Minister Khan will chair the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting on easing the lockdown restrictions in the country. The meeting will be attended by all chief ministers.

The issue was debated in the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday and in the Cabinet on Tuesday.

Planning Minister Asad Umar said that different proposals to allow certain businesses to open were prepared and will be presented before the Prime Minister for a final decision.

Earlier, Khan, undeterred by the mounting number of deaths and the new cases, announced that he was against a lockdown as it hits the poor people badly.

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News Network
February 17,2020

Feb 17: Chinese authorities on Monday reported a slight upturn in new virus cases and 105 more deaths for a total of 1,770 since the outbreak began two months ago.

The 2,048 new cases followed three days of declines but was up by just 39 cases from the previous day’s figure. Another 10,844 people have recovered from COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, and have been discharged from hospitals, according to Monday’s figures.

The update followed the publication late Saturday in China’s official media of a recent speech by President Xi Jinping in which he indicated for the first time that he had led the response to the outbreak from early in the crisis. While the reports were an apparent attempt to demonstrate the Communist Party leadership acted decisively from the start, it also opened Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.

In his speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown of the most-affected cities that began on Jan. 23.

The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.

New cases in other countries are raising growing concerns about containment of the virus.

Taiwan on Sunday reported its first death from COVID-19, the fifth fatality outside of mainland China. Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing health minister Chen Shih-chung, said the man who died was in his 60s and had not traveled overseas recently and had no known contact with virus patients.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss containment measures in his country, where more than a dozen cases have emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country is “entering into a phase that is different from before,” requiring new steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Japan now has 413 confirmed cases, including 355 from a quarantined cruise ship, and one death from the virus. Its total is the highest number of cases among about two dozen countries outside of China where the illness has spread.

Hundreds of Americans from the cruise ship took charter flights home, as Japan announced another 70 infections had been confirmed on the Diamond Princess. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights.

The 300 or so Americans flying on U.S.-government chartered aircraft back to the U.S. will face another 14-day quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The U.S. Embassy said the departure was offered because people on the ship were at a high risk of exposure to the virus. People with symptoms were banned from the flights.

About 255 Canadians and 330 Hong Kong residents are on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals. There are also 35 Italians, of which 25 are crew members, including the captain.

In China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak began in December, all vehicle traffic will be banned in another containment measure. It expands a vehicle ban in the provincial capital, Wuhan, where public transportation, trains and planes have been halted for weeks.

Exceptions were being made for vehicles involved in epidemic prevention and transporting daily necessities.

Hubei has built new hospitals with thousands of patient beds and China has sent thousands of military medical personnel to staff the new facilities and help the overburdened health care system.

Last Thursday, Hubei changed how it recognized COVID-19 cases, accepting a doctor’s diagnosis rather than waiting for confirmed laboratory test results, in order to treat patients faster. The tally spiked by more than 15,000 cases under the new method.

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