The Beijing show over, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping push their own world trade orders at Apec
US president sends hardline message on South China Sea and trade protectionism while Chinese leader offers his country as a defender of globalisation
No sooner had the leaders of China and the United States patted each other on the back for a swag of business deals in Beijing than they were taking diverging stands on global trade at a regional summit in Vietnam.
The two presidents arrived on Friday in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang, a former American military base facing the South China Sea, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO summit, just hours after both lauded the success of US President Donald Trump’s first state trip to China.
Trump headed straight to the podium to deliver a confrontational speech to regional business leaders centred on his “America first” policy – a fiery protectionist doctrine that led the US to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
“We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of any more,” he said. “I am always going to put America first the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.”
Without naming China, Trump threatened that the US would not tolerate “audacious intellectual theft”, echoing his long-standing complaints about Chinese trade practices.