The Trump dilemma: Geo-strategy vs geo-economics

THERE was a certain end-of-an-era mood during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Lima, Peru, particularly when the focus was on the United States' role in promoting free trade in the Pacific Rim region and beyond.

In many ways, the 1993 Apec summit in Seattle had ushered in the era of globalism. The US led by then president Bill Clinton played the role of a political and economic engine in an effort aimed at removing barriers for trade and investment in Asia, as it reoriented its geostrategic and geoeconomic interests towards the new emerging economies there. Washington under president Clinton and his Republican successor, president George W Bush, invested time and energy in bringing the Uruguay Round of trade talks to a successful conclusion, helping create the foundations for the new World Trade Organization (WTO); normalising US trade relationship with China; and integrating China into the global economy. Presidents Clinton and Bush, backed by Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, insisted that these and related moves were critical in advancing both US' economic and strategic interests.

Promoting globalism, especially when it came to the rising economies of East Asia, helped open global markets to American exports and investment; and by extension, helped create new high-skilled US jobs. At the same time, continuing to maintain US political and military presence in East Asia offered Washington an opportunity to protect its interests and promote its values in the region, while providing a sense of security for its economic partners and military allies there. From that perspective, the promotion of US geostrategic interests in the Pacific Rim helped complement its geoeconomic interests, and vice versa. Expanding American trade and investment ties in the region hasn't strengthened only its economy but also its political-military status.