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Serious USA is Abandoned by Whole APEC Region Governments - Left Out Isolated!

Ang4MohTrump

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Ang Moh Trump is left buried behind his own Great Wall!


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http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/wor...s-commit-to-move-ahead-with-pact-11162140.php


Pacific ministers commit to move ahead with pact without US
May 21, 2017 Updated: May 21, 2017 3:15am

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, center, speaks during a press conference after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministerial meeting in Hanoi, Sunday, May 21, 2017. The Pacific Rim trade ministers meeting in Vietnam have committed to move ahead with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact after the United States pulled out. Photo: Hau Dinh, AP / Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Photo: Hau Dinh, AP
Image 1 of 6
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, center, speaks during a press conference after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministerial meeting in Hanoi, Sunday, May 21, 2017. The Pacific Rim ... more

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Pacific Rim trade ministers meeting in Vietnam committed Sunday to move ahead with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact after the United States pulled out.

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said the remaining 11 TPP countries are open to others joining provided they accept the trade agreement's high standards on labor and environmental protection. He said the door remains open to the U.S., even after President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact in January, saying he prefers bilateral free trade deals.

"It's clear that each country is having to consider both economic values and strategic importance of this agreement, but in the end there is a lot of unity among all of the countries and a great desire to work together to come up with an agreement among 11 that not only delivers for all of our economies and the people of our countries, it's also open to others countries in the world to join if they can meet the high standards in the TPP agreement," McClay told reporters.

Since the U.S withdrawal, Japan and New Zealand have been spearheading efforts to revive the deal. In its current form, the TPP requires U.S. participation before it can go into effect. That means the remaining countries would need to change the rules for any deal to go ahead, and it would be significantly smaller without the involvement of the world's largest economy.

The 11 countries represent roughly 13.5 percent of the global economy, according to the World Bank.

The trade ministers said in a statement that they agreed to launch a process to assess options to bring the agreement into force "expeditiously, including how to facilitate membership for the original signatories."

The ministers have tasked their trade officials to present the assessment to their leaders when they meet for an annual the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam in November, which will also include Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

They also underlined their vision for the TPP to expand to include other economies, saying such efforts would address concerns about protectionism, contribute to maintaining open markets, strengthening the rules-based international trading system, increasing world trade and raising living standards.

Vietnam and Malaysia had been expected to be beneficiaries from the original TPP with greater access to U.S. markets and investments. The TPP was championed by former President Barack Obama and was seen as a counterbalance to China's growing influence in the region.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, making his international debut since taking office a week ago, defended Trump's decision to pull out of the TPP.

"We expect to engage with members here in many cases on bilateral basis," he told reporters. "The president made the decision, which I certainly agree with, that bilateral negotiation is better for the United States than multilateral negotiations."

"But we certainly expect to stay engaged and I believe that at some point that there'll be series of bilateral agreements with willing partners in this part of the world," Lighthizer added.

He rejected criticism that the Trump administration was embracing trade protectionism. "Our view is that we want free trade, we want fair trade, we want a system that leads to greater market efficiencies in the world," Lighthizer said.

The China-led 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will meet Monday in Hanoi to further their discussions on a separate deal seen as an alternative to the TPP. It is expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

"I think confidence we have shown in this meeting for the multilateral trading system for regional economic cooperation within APEC can be a very good and strong signal that we are united and we are steadfast in fighting trade protectionism and reducing trade risks," said Chinese Deputy Trade Minister Wang Shouwen.




https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/...isters-omit-protectionism-pledge-in-statement




APEC Trade Ministers Omit Protectionism Pledge in Statement

by Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen
and Luu Van Dat
May 21, 2017, 4:02 AM EDT May 21, 2017, 7:24 AM EDT

Ministers seek to remove barriers to trade, investment
Earlier G-7, G-20 meetings pared wording against protectionism

Trade ministers attend a press conference during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible For Trade (APEC MRT 23) meeting in Hanoi on May 21, Photographer: Kham/AFP via Getty Images

Asia-Pacific trade ministers issued a diluted “actions” statement after a weekend meeting in Vietnam, suggesting further pressure from the U.S. to avoid explicit pledges to combat protectionism.

The statement came after a dispute over wording, particularly whether to include language about protectionism. Instead, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation document focused on issues like regulation and red tape.

“We call on officials to accelerate work to deepen APEC’s structural reform agenda to remove barriers to trade and investment,” it said.

The outcome contrasted with a ministerial meeting in Peru in November. “We reaffirm the pledge made by our leaders against protectionism through a standstill commitment that we recommend be extended until the end of 2020 and to roll back protectionist and trade-distorting measures, which weaken trade and slow down the progress and recovery of the international economy,” the Peru statement said.

The Hanoi talks follow multilateral gatherings where the U.S. has pushed for softer language about protectionism, and shows President Donald Trump’s administration, which is seeking to renegotiate key trade agreements, continues to challenge prevailing economic doctrine.

Speaking at a briefing on Sunday in Hanoi, U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said his country faced a huge trade deficit and warned it would fight against “unfair trade.” The U.S. would stick by its decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

“That does not mean we will not engage in this region,” Lighthizer said. "The President thought it was so important that I come here and demonstrate to this region how important it is to the U.S. to be involved.”
‘You Guess’

Vietnam’s Industry and Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh said at the same briefing the 21-member APEC strongly supported the multilateral trading environment, while warning of "signs of protectionism.”

"It’s a pity that they missed the chance to raise a strong voice against protectionism," said Le Dang Doanh, an economist and former Vietnam government adviser. "APEC countries need to show their role in pushing for free trade with further cooperation.”

Russia’s Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin said in an interview on Saturday there was one country at the talks opposed to a strong commitment to fighting protectionism. When asked who that was, he replied: “You guess.”

“When there were talks about the memorandum of the forum, there were 20 countries that agree on everything and one country that has not agreed on anything,” he said.
Fair, Reciprocal

G-7 finance chiefs signed up this month to a pared-down pledge on global trade. The governments at a meeting in Italy said in a statement they are “working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies” -- a repetition of the language used at the G-20 gathering in March that fell short of an explicit promise to avoid protectionism.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused then to sign up to a well-established shunning of protectionism, and pressed for trade to be “fair” and “reciprocal.”

“They claim that U.S. policy is free trade but what they say they want is what they call fair trade,” said He Weiwen, a former Chinese trade diplomat in San Francisco and New York. “Really though the only purpose of the U.S. is to protect industries from unfair competition.”

“They haven’t explained what fair trade really is and are just claiming that it is something different,” said He, now a senior fellow at the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization. “This is certainly not workable. It won’t help APEC, the G-20 or the whole course of the global economy. It is a pretext for protectionism.”

Canada’s Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the focus should be on actions rather than statements.

“Actions are that economies have agreed to maintain rules-based open and free trade,” he said on Sunday in an interview. “I think we have to look at the big picture, which is the economies represented here have expressed a desire to continue to strengthen the system that exists in the Asia-Pacific."

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said there was no harm in having robust discussions and added the debate had been a “respectful one.”

“Ultimately we shouldn’t become overly concerned where we can’t reach agreement on a statement clearly and quickly at every single meeting,” he said in an interview on Sunday. “What you would be concerned about is when countries are not willing to come back and keep talking to each other.”

“Without question the U.S. administration has indicated they have different views around what fairness in trade means in as far as people meeting their obligations through agreements around trade disputes and so on,” McClay added. “Actually from what I have seen I have a lot of sympathy for the view that seems to be forming in the U.S.”




http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apec-vietnam-idUSKCN18H02B


U.S. and Pacific Rim countries at odds in heated trade meeting

Delegates chat after the TPP11 meeting, a gathering of Trans-Pacific Pact member countries, held on the sideline of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 23rd Ministers responsible for Trade Meeting in Hanoi on May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Hoang Dinh Nam/Pool

By A. Ananthalakshmi and Mai Nguyen | HANOI

Japan and other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed on Sunday to pursue their trade deal without the United States, as the Trump administration's “America First” policy created tension at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries.

Turmoil over global trade negotiations was laid bare at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which failed to agree on its usual joint statement after U.S. opposition to wording on free trade and fighting protectionism.

The meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, was the biggest global trade gathering since U.S. President Donald Trump upended the old order, arguing that multilateral free-trade agreements were costing American jobs and that he wanted to cut new deals.

On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific meeting, the 11 remaining countries of the TPP agreed to explore how they could move ahead without erstwhile leader the United States - partly in the hope that Washington would reconsider leaving.

New U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said there was no way back.

"I believe at some point there will be a series of bilateral agreements with partners in this part of the world," the 69-year-old Reagan-era trade negotiator told a news conference. "Bilateral negotiations are better for the United States."

Although the TPP members kept the trade agreement alive, they fell short of a wholehearted commitment to advance immediately with a deal that members also see as a way to contain an increasingly dominant China.

"We're focused on how we can move ahead with 11 countries," New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said.

One of the biggest challenges is keeping on board Vietnam and Malaysia, which signed up for the deal and promised to make major reforms largely to get better U.S. market access.

"We will need to ensure that our interests remain protected and the benefits derived from it still outweigh the costs," Malaysian Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed said.

The volume of trade between the remaining countries is barely a quarter of the level it would have been if the United States had remained in the TPP.

Officials from TPP countries will meet again in Japan in July and bring proposals in November, McClay said.

PROTECTIONISM

Fears of protectionism have grown under the Trump presidency and the failure of the Asia-Pacific countries to agree on their usual joint statement did nothing to quell them.

The United States was against wording agreed to by the other 20 APEC countries that supported free trade and opposed protectionism, officials at the talks said.

A statement from the Vietnamese chairman of the talks gave a "commitment to promote trade and investment liberalization".
Related Coverage

U.S. trade representative says no return to TPP deal and wants bilateral deals in Asia

But the only announcement from all the members was an "Actions Statement" that contained no such commitments. It mentioned topics such as sustainable growth, small businesses and technical cooperation.

The wrangling is similar to what has been seen at gatherings of Group of 20 and Group of Seven financial leaders, where statements were toned down to fit with the new U.S. agenda.

Explaining U.S. opposition to using the word protectionism, Lighthizer said the term was being confused with the steps that were really needed to promote free trade.

"Our view is that we want free trade, we want fair trade, we want a system that leads to greater market efficiency throughout the world," he said.

On the sidelines of the APEC meeting, Lighthizer held a series of one-on-one meetings with key partners. Those included China as well as Canada and Mexico, members of the North American Free Trade Agreement which Trump seeks to renegotiate.

China, putting itself forward as a global free trade champion in light of the U.S. shift, is pushing an agreement to encompass the vast majority of Asian economies. The Asia trade deal it favors is called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

(Additional reporting by My Pham; Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Stephen Coates)

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The_Hypocrite

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These APEC countries need the USA more than the USA needs them,,and Japan and spore have free trade agreements with the USA..and TPP is such a crap deal,,these hanger ons still want to pursue it? They must have shit for brains
 

virus

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they hump burgers just doing their bits to get a holiday rubdown and drink at taxpayer's expenses.
 
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