Tensions Over U.S. Tariffs and Geopolitics at ASEAN Meeting in Malaysia

TaiwanPlus News

An ASEAN meeting featuring a range of guests including the U.S., China and Russia is overshadowed by tensions over U.S. tariffs and geopolitical rivalries.

Transcript

00:00Dinner is served in Kuala Lumpur as a diplomatic who's who gathers in Malaysia.

00:05This is a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but this time invited guests

00:10include a range of foreign ministers from far beyond the region.

00:14But behind the handshakes, smiles, and the dancing is delicate tension.

00:19The shadow of U.S. tariffs looms over the proceedings, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

00:24is here.

00:25ASEAN member countries now face U.S. tariffs of 25 to 40 percent on their goods, and some

00:30of the guest nations from outside the region have also got their tariff notices from the

00:34Trump administration.

00:36Rubio defended the letters, and the tariff set to come.

00:39Now obviously that does not foreclose the opportunity for individual countries to enter into negotiations

00:47that perhaps can adjust those numbers, but in the end the President still remains very

00:51committed to a rebalancing of trade that's fair to America, and also at the same time

00:57protects our own industrial capabilities.

01:00But elsewhere, there were signs of Asian countries ready to weather the tariff storm together.

01:05Host Malaysia's Prime Minister has also called for Southeast Asia to come together, and its

01:09members to trade more with one another in difficult times.

01:12Tariffs, export restrictions, and investment barriers have now become the sharpened instruments

01:22of geopolitical rivalry.

01:24This is no passing storm.

01:27It is the new weather of our time.

01:29Now ASEAN must confront this reality with clarity and conviction.

01:33And at a meeting of the ASEAN Plus 3, China, Japan, and South Korea, China's Foreign Minister

01:40Wang Yi had this to say.

01:42But while tariffs took up much of the

02:12energy, geopolitics was on the menu too, with major rivals represented in one place.

02:18Marco Rubio has met with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

02:21And he's met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi too.

02:26Despite the current administration taking an America First approach, Rubio has said the

02:30U.S. is committed to ASEAN and the broader region.

02:32The Indo-Pacific, the region, remains a focal point of U.S. foreign policy.

02:40When I hear in the news that perhaps the United States or the world might be distracted by

02:44events in other parts of the planet, I would say distraction is impossible.

02:49Because it is our view, our strong view, and the reality that this century and the story

02:55of the next 50 years will largely be written here, in this region, in this part of the world.

03:00And so, amid polite diplomatic surroundings, some of the great global tensions of the day

03:05are playing out.

03:07As the large swathes of the globe represented here, wait to see what comes out of these talks.

03:12Andy Xiu and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.

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