00:00Our correspondent Farhana Sheikh was at the Kuala Lumpur Roundtable on Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation, bringing you the key takeaways and what they mean for the region.
00:11The Kuala Lumpur Roundtable on Asia-Pacific Corporation has wrapped up after two days of intense discussion.
00:17Now, policymakers and thought leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism, calling for greater openness in the face of shifting global dynamics as well as rising protectionism.
00:27Now, they also looked into ways to tap into opportunities for digital economy as well as green development.
00:33Now, the event was graced by the presence of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is in his special address, talked about the strength of ASEAN's centrality in fostering greater collaboration and deeper unity.
00:45Now, building on that, after the session, I managed to catch up with former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Carlos Guterres, to talk about the way forward for the region in today's shifting global order.
00:55Let's hear what he has to say.
00:56Because the trend today is toward more bilateralism.
01:01And bilateralism on a global scale would create some confusion and a lot of different standards.
01:09So countries are going to have to push and be committed to a multilateralism.
01:15You know, in the absence of a multilateral order, say the WTO, which is becoming less and less effective, then regions within regions like ASEAN, I think will be very valuable because that prevents falling into a world of bilateralism or unilateralism.
01:37So I think ASEAN has big opportunities.
01:41I think there's a good moment for ASEAN if they could work on even more integration.
01:47Commenting on U.S. tariffs, Carlos urged small economies to stay open and resist protectionist measures.
01:53The tariff effort, the tariff strategy, if we can call it that, is very bilateral because with the exception of the European Union, it was very much about countries.
02:08The U.S. negotiating with individual countries.
02:12I think that that eventually will settle into a uniform tariff in the U.S., perhaps 15%.
02:19And then we can get back to less of bilateral and more of regional or multilateral.
02:30There's no question that today the challenge is how to get beyond the bilateral relationships because, yes, a lot of the agreements have been bilateral with the U.S.
02:41So we have to look beyond that and know that there's a time when we'll have to think about regional and multilateral world order, to be aggressive about bilateral agreements, to be aggressive about trade, to open the economy, to fall into protectionism at this moment could be very detrimental to smaller markets, smaller countries.
03:08So I would say look for opportunities to have agreements with other countries and not fall into protectionism.
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