Trump’s Re-election May Lead to Trade War in Asia
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Analysts suggest that if former U.S. President Donald Trump succeeds in his re-election in this year’s U.S. election, the U.S. could abandon the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) along with aggressive trade policies against Asian countries with large trade surpluses with the U.S.
Senior Fellows Yohan Gu and Alan Wolf of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), a U.S. think tank, stated in an article titled “Deepening India-Pacific Economic Cooperation in 2024” published on the 5th (local time) that “the U.S. election result is a major variable in the world political landscape.” They emphasized that “major middle powers such as Japan and Korea need to intensify cooperation to achieve the common goals set by the IPEF.” This implies that middle powers need to take proactive steps to prevent a situation where the U.S. returns to its nationalistic policies starting a trade war with Asia and disabling the IPEF if Trump is re-elected.
The IPEF is a multilateral economic consultation body involving 14 countries led by the U.S. in 2022 to counteract China’s growing economic influence in the India-Pacific region. However, former President Trump declared at a campaign rally in Iowa in November last year that he would immediately dismantle the IPEF if he won the election. Trump criticized, “President Biden has returned to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 2.0,” and “It’s worse than the original TPP which tripled outsourcing to Asia.”
Currently, the IPEF has reached an agreement in the field of clean economy, but discussions in the trade sector are stalled. Gu and Wolf emphasized that “even if Trump is elected and the U.S. withdraws from the IPEF, middle powers should take ownership, as Japan took a leading role after the U.S. withdrew from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in 2017.”
By. Ju Yeon Park
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