Outside In | APEC must address issues at home as new wave of protectionism threatens progress
For the past week I have been watching angst-ridden business leaders in the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) wrestling in Peru with how best to respond in a world economy that from almost any perspective seems to be falling apart.
Everything that the trade-liberalising ABAC has worked for over the past 25 years seems to be under threat as Trump and Brexit redefine global attitudes to the economic liberalism that has defined the post-Second World War era.
Everything that the trade-liberalising ABAC has worked for over the past 25 years seems to be under threat
As Trump talks of killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, renegotiating Nafta, slapping huge tariffs on China and Mexico, and preposterously defining China as a currency manipulator, there seems to be some comfort around the ABAC tables – and among the top officials gathered nearby for this year’s APEC Leaders Meeting – that the commitment to liberalisation among most APEC members remains strong.
But the nagging question is whether we are sitting here in Lima cocooned in a dream world, unhinged from a new and destructive protectionist reality that in the coming months will spread from Brexit and Trump to right wing activists in France, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany.
If our economies are to remain open, we have to do a much better job addressing the concerns at home among those that feel they have been left out
The second nagging question is what on Earth to do about it. The conviction remains strong that globalisation and strong trade growth have brought massive net benefits to us all, but there is an emerging consensus that business groups like ABAC have done a terrible job back in our home economies of building broad community recognition of those benefits – and even less to address the alarm of those that have been casualties.
This weekend’s APEC Leaders meeting looks set to become one of the most fractious that APEC has seen in its 27-year history. Obama is cutting his visit to the minimum, and will back away from discussion on the plight of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Jokowi from Indonesia and President Park from Korea have “little local difficulties” that are keeping them at home. Thailand’s military president will not join. Trudeau from Canada is also staying home. Loose-cannon Duterte from the Philippines is flying in reluctantly, cross at the long journey.