In this clip from Woo Says, Professor Emeritus Datuk Woo Wing Thye and Melisa Idris unpack the high-stakes tightrope Malaysia is walking, between moral leadership on Palestine liberation and the economic realities of U.S. ties.
00:00This week on Wu Says, we look into US President Donald Trump's scheduled visit here for the ASEAN Summit and its implications.
00:08Here's a segment from the conversation with Professor Emeritus Dato' Dr Wu Wingtai.
00:13Do you believe Anwar made the right call in inviting Donald Trump to attend the ASEAN Summit?
00:18Well, it was very hard call to make because I'm sure Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is no less, feels no less repoused like you about Donald Trump.
00:37Now, here is a person who has been downright insulting towards Muslims and to almost every minority group.
00:53Now, praising Trump does get you some goodies.
00:58For example, if you look at the tariff rate of the European Union, the tariff rate is roughly 15% for France, for Germany, and so forth.
01:13Britain had 10%.
01:16So, buying friendly to Great Britain, Britain was able to get a much better trade deal than anybody.
01:25Then, then, then its neighbours.
01:30Another example I want to bring to mind is when Nate, when Trump went for the NATO Summit.
01:37And he, of course, claimed great credit for stopping conflict elsewhere in the world.
01:45Like he claimed to have stopped the fighting between Thailand and Cambodia, when it is our Anwar Ibrahim that actually brought about that happy state of affairs of a ceasefire.
01:58Now, so, he was claiming credit about that the fight between Iran and Israel is not something you can do easily.
02:10It's like little children fighting, you know, sometimes you can let them fight for a while before you can persuade them not to fight.
02:17And at that moment, the Secretary General of NATO jumps in and says, yeah, daddy knows best.
02:25Daddy has to stop bad things from happening.
02:29Well, what has that daddy earned NATO?
02:33Well, Trump basically agreed to NATO taking a longer time in reaching 5% of spending or 5% of his budget to be spent on military rearmament.
02:52So, praising Trump makes it easier for Trump to climb down from his unreasonable positions.
03:03For us, the average tariff rate of asset is 19%.
03:09And the negotiations are not done.
03:15They are still ongoing.
03:16In fact, a few days ago, the U.S. trade negotiator said that if we do not make faster progress, we will have to raise the tariff rates on ASEAN.
03:32So, we are talking about not just Malaysia, that our economic prosperity is on the line.
03:43It's that of ASEAN as well.
03:47We, many times, have to walk, like you said, walk a tightrope between showing publicly our disapproval of the person
04:03versus trying to increase the welfare of our country.
04:15Catch the full conversation on Awani International and across our social media platforms.
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