00:00Mark Oswald is Chief Economist and Global Strategist at ADM Investor Services International.
00:06There is clearly an effort to build bridges, particularly with two of the more tense relationships,
00:12i.e. with South Korea and Japan, who are seen as much more closely tied with the United States.
00:19But at the end of the day, both of those countries are also very closely tied into Asia.
00:24You know, this is sort of essentially the nub of the problem for the whole of Asia.
00:31It's not just the big northeast Asian economies.
00:38It's a problem that, you know, there is going to be trade with China and the United States.
00:45Trying to balance the two is a very big challenge, but there is no or in either of this.
00:51I.e. it's not, you know, it's not all U.S. or China.
00:56It's U.S. and China.
00:59And that for all of them, you know, China is clearly looking to reach out,
01:03particularly I noted the desire to reach out to the Japanese Prime Minister Takeichi
01:13and to Prime Minister Carney in Canada.
01:16Those are very important.
01:18Canada obviously has its own fight with the United States in terms of trade
01:23and needs, above all, to broaden its horizons, you know,
01:27and the EU is simply not sufficient, basically,
01:31if it's going to find itself seeing a fairly substantial drop in trade with the United States.
01:37President, she urged members to safeguard multilateralism.
01:41What stood out for you in terms of these speeches?
01:45You know, how is that all going to play out?
01:48This is not an unfamiliar theme from President Xi or indeed Chinese officials as a whole,
01:54that the multilateral trading system needs to be preserved.
01:58And it's obviously in the face of resource nationalism,
02:05of greater, you know, trade resistance to globalization that we're seeing particularly in Europe
02:14and to a certain extent in North America.
02:17I say to a certain extent because Canada is definitely not in the same camp as the United States.
02:22There is a clear, very strong determination to ensure that the trade continues, trade volumes continue to grow.
02:34In terms of what investors have been looking for, did you get what you were hoping for from these meetings?
02:40I think it's two-sided on that side.
02:46I think everyone is glad that this is, shall we put, put on the sidelines now for a while.
02:55There is, however, a recognition that because this agreement doesn't basically deal with any of the big tense tensions between the U.S. and China,
03:05that it's not that great.
03:07On the other hand, when one looks at some of the Asian stock markets, for example, particularly South Korea,
03:14you know, the agreement that South Korea reached with the U.S.
03:17and the fact that, obviously, U.S.-China trade tensions are, you know,
03:22has put the Korean stock market at its highest level since 2001.
03:30That is a recognition that people are feeling very relieved.
03:33And I think, you know, if one's looking at financial markets at the moment,
03:37everyone is looking for diversification opportunities because far too much,
03:42particularly in terms of the big investment in tech and in AI-related stocks,
03:50has been concentrated in the Magnificent Seven, as they're called, in the U.S.
03:55And there is a recognition that particularly in Asia, it's going to be part of the story.
04:02It is an absolutely critical part of the supply chain.
04:07And with these various agreements, that can go forward rather than the risk that some of this would lead
04:14to a lot of disruption, which would harm that outlook.
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