US trade probes risk alienating Asean, casting doubt on future of deals

The United States’ inclusion of Southeast Asian countries among economic partners it intends to investigate for unfair trade practices is expected to push the region further from Washington’s orbit.The probes, announced last week, could lead to new levies imposed on countries, based on allegations of forced labour and trade surpluses, even as the Donald Trump administration rails against a Supreme Court ruling that shot down sweeping tariffs imposed earlier.Seven countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, were named in the list that also featured other major US trading partners such as the European Union, China, South Korea, India and Japan.“The US will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us. Today’s investigations underscore President Trump’s commitment to reshore critical supply chains and create good-paying jobs for American workers across our manufacturing sectors,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on March 11.“Across numerous sectors, many US trading partners are producing more goods than they can consume domestically. This overproduction displaces existing US domestic production or prevents investment and expansion in US manufacturing production that otherwise would have been brought online.”US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Photo: TNSKevin Chen, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said Trump’s defiance of the Supreme Court ruling indicated his side still wanted to make tariffs “the cornerstone of America’s trading relationship with the region”.