Two years ago, South Korea turned away from the U.S. for leadership in defense and trade. China was standing by to fill in the void, as I wrote in “The world is moving on without U.S. — Korean Peninsula peace gesture edition”:
On the economic front,
China was already South Korea’s biggest trading partner, and Chump’s
tariffs are driving South Korea and Japan deeper into China’s arms:
Officials from China, Japan and South Korea are calling for further efforts to accelerate talks about a free-trade agreement between the three northeast Asian economies in the face of escalating trade pressures from the US.
[…] Yang Zhengwei, a deputy director general at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told the three countries’ fifth free-trade agreement (FTA) forum in Beijing on Wednesday that China was preparing for the next round of talks between the nations.
[…] “As the promoters of free trade, joint efforts to push forward to build a China-Japan-South Korea FTA as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) would also help to jointly resist the impact of turbulence in external markets.”
In fact, the 16 member nations of the RCEP already met in July to discuss ways to reduce their dependence on the U.S. as a trading partner:
At a meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which is co-chaired by Japan and Singapore, trade ministers and officials from 16 countries renewed their commitment to speed up negotiations on outstanding issues by the end of the year.
[…] In a joint statement, the ministers said achieving a pact is important especially “in view of the current global trade environment, which faces serious risks from unilateral trade actions and reactions, as well as their debilitating implications on the multilateral trading system.” They also pledged to seek breakthroughs in politically challenging areas.
[…] Trump’s moves have resonated in Asia, where many countries have prospered thanks to free trade and the expansion of global supply chains.
They plan to meet again at year-end in Singapore to “reach a basic conclusion” regarding how to proceed. A trade agreement among the RCEP nations would have global impact because they are populous and those that are not already prosperous are emerging:
It includes the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the six Asia-Pacific countries with whom ASEAN has existing FTAs, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
[…] Leading economic indicators provide insights into the RCEP’s potential. For instance, the 16 member nations of RCEP cover almost half of the world’s population, and account for 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 25 percent of the global exports, according to ASEAN. Going forward, GDP estimates for 2050 by PwC Global suggest that RCEP has the potential to account for half the share of the global economy as China and India are expected to hold the top two spots and the U.S. would drop to the third rank.
This is what “America first” going it alone looks like when the uninformed, short-sighted Chump Doctrine alienates our trading partners. Will our military allies similarly shun us? We haven’t exactly reassured them that we’ll honor our previous commitments…
Reuters today:
Asia forms world's biggest trade bloc, a China-backed group excluding U.S.
Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade bloc on Sunday, a China-backed deal that excludes the United States, which had left a rival Asia-Pacific grouping under President Donald Trump.
The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at a regional summit in Hanoi, is a further blow to the group pushed by former U.S. president Barack Obama, which his successor Trump exited in 2017.
Amid questions over Washington’s engagement in Asia, RCEP may cement China’s position more firmly as an economic partner with Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea, putting the world’s second-biggest economy in a better position to shape the region’s trade rules.
trump has damaged international relations in ways that will continue to hurt the 99.9% for years to come. Biden may be able to rescind trump’s executive orders, but their aftermath can’t be undone so easily. Here’s one of the long-term consequences of trumpism:
RCEP will account for 30% of the global economy, 30% of the global population and reach 2.2 billion consumers, Vietnam said.
trump’s abject failure at containing the pandemic has already cratered our economy to an extent that even after a vaccine becomes widely available and people can return to work and school safely, many people won’t have jobs to go back to because their employer was driven out of business. Add to that pain the fact that consumers are still paying for foreign tariffs levied in retaliation for trump’s import tariffs. Now a trading bloc that doesn’t include the U.S. is in position to flex its economic muscle in dealings with the U.S. Our economic recovery may be further away than we thought. As ABC News notes:
China and 14 other countries agreed Sunday to set up the world’s largest trading bloc, encompassing nearly a third of all economic activity, in a deal many in Asia are hoping will help hasten a recovery from the shocks of the pandemic.
Asia to U.S.: Sucks to be you.
Yes. Yes it does. For now. But not forever.