Trump’s Plan to Make America Great Again has Asia Questioning his Loyalty
ASIA - From Japan to South Korea to China to Vietnam, the president extended his offer to partner with the United States on a “fair and equal basis” outside of the Trans Pacific Partnership, the multi-nation accord that Trump withdrew from on his first full day in office. “I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade,” Trump told a gathering of Asia-Pacific powers in Vietnam on Friday.
Foreign trading partners aren’t taking the bait. In every country Trump visited, none of the leaders entered trade negotiations or offered significant concessions to the former real estate magnate. In Tokyo, no sooner did Trump’s plane leave the tarmac than the finance minister declared that “We won’t do an FTA,” Taro Aso said, using the acronym for free trade agreement. In Beijing, even the president’s own top diplomat conceded that the talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping achieved little. “Quite frankly, in the grand scheme of a $300 to $500 billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small,” said the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday.
That doesn’t mean Asian leaders gave Trump a chilly reception- far from it. In China, Trump was greeted with thundering cannon fire and a military honor guard at Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People and became the first foreign leader to dine in the Forbidden City since the founding of the People’s Republic. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe treated Trump to a round of golf at the planned site of the 2020 Olympics tournament and brought along 25-year-old Japanese golf star Hideki Matsuyama. In South Korea, a gleeful crowd of children hysterically cheered Trump’s arrival in what President Moon Jae-in called the first state visit by a US president in 25 years.
That pomp and circumstance didn’t translate into tangible deliverables, a fact on senior Asian diplomat attributed to a trust issue. “Everyone’s unsure about Trump, they look at how he treats Canada and Mexico. If he’s tossing them under the bus, actual allies, how is he going to treat us?” Trump’s biggest challenge, he said, may be that Asian leaders take him at his word when it comes to his “America First” rhetoric. Each country is unique when it comes to its appetite for a bilateral agreement. In South Korea and Vietnam, finding an agreement that addresses Trump’s main priority reducing the trade deficit is particularly difficult.
Officials at the White House and Office of the US trade representatives did not respond to request for comment. The Trump administration also put itself at a disadvantage by leaving trip preparation to the last minute. “Previous Presidents had their visits to Asia preceded by six months of leg work. Really hard, intensive, engagement in the region by cabinet and sub-candidate officials to get deliverables,” said Ryan Hass, an Asia expert who spent the last four years at the White House before decamping for the Brookings Institution. “That has not occurred in the run up to this visit.” A key refrain in Trump’s trip is the importance of the “Indo Pacific region,” a catchphrase that emphasizes the regional importance of India, a rising power many view as a potential counterweight to China.
