There were a lot of mixed emotions – and Trump anxiety – at the recent COP29 UN Climate Summit in Baku. — AP
OVER the past two weeks, four of the world’s more important multilateral institutions – and hundreds of world leaders – worked hard to foster international cooperation. Pity most of their work is likely to be in vain.
Instead of focusing on the looming challenges – from slowing climate change and agreeing on finance for poor countries that are immediately threatened, to reforming global institutions and settling wars in Ukraine and the Middle East – leaders have been diverted by how to “Trump-proof” their economies.
In Baku in Azerbaijan, thousands of leaders and officials at Cop29, the UN climate change conference, wrestled with the challenge of slowing global warming and finding the trillions of dollars needed to protect poor, climate-vulnerable countries. But they must surely know they are spitting in the wind. The financing commitments they seek are unlikely to be worth the paper they are written on.
Donald Trump, who has dismissed the climate crisis as a Chinese hoax, is far likelier to withdraw America again from the 2015 Paris Agreement and divert investment to boosting the US oil and gas industry than he is to sign multibillion-dollar cheques to help poor economies deal with climate loss and damage.
And it is not just Trump who cannot be trusted. As Harvard professor Dani Rodrik notes: “The United States and other major economies are woefully ill-disposed to provide the public goods the world economy really needs; and given the mood in their capitals these days, their disposition is unlikely to improve any time soon.”
In Lima, Peru, US President Joe Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec summit as the lamest of lame ducks. (Is there not deep irony that Barack Obama flew into the 2016 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit – also in Lima – as a lame duck days after Trump first won the presidential election?)
As the other 20 Apec leaders looked to commit to “creating the conditions necessary for trade to become more open, equitable, transparent and inclusive”, everyone in the room knew Biden’s signature would mean nothing. The real conversations were surely focused on Trump’s tariff plans and how best to parry them.
And most of the excitement was likely reserved for Xi’s inauguration of a US$1.3bil mega port in Chancay, 60km northeast of Lima, and the fact that the Chinese leader arrived for a state visit with a big business delegation. While Trump beat his chest in Mar-a-Lago, other Apec members were quietly getting on with business – perhaps the most effective Trump-proofing strategy of all.
Whether Trump plans to withdraw the US from Apec – or whether the US remains relevant to Apec’s mission of free and open trade and investment – was perhaps at the back of many nervous minds.
In Rio de Janeiro, the world’s major economies convened for the G20 summit on Nov 18. Agenda priorities include climate change and the global energy transition, reform of governance at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – as well as ending of global poverty and eradication of global hunger.
Trump-proofing has also been an imperative at Nato, with the transatlantic security alliance preparing for potential cuts in US financial commitment, perhaps even a withdrawal – which European leaders see as a clear and present danger. Many are anxious about the plight of Ukraine and the European Union member states near Russia. For policymakers and business leaders alike, the US is no longer “an anchor for stability, but rather a risk to be hedged against”, said the Financial Times’ Rana Foroohar.
In Geneva, the World Trade Organization is also busy Trump-proofing. Fearful of a Trump veto on the re-election of its director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – Trump had blocked her election in 2020 and his trade representative Robert Lighthizer called her “China’s ally in Geneva” – the WTO brought forward the election by two months. No one came forward to challenge her.
Given Trump’s deep dislike of the WTO and his likely reappointment of protectionist Rottweiler Lighthizer as his top trade official, the incoming US administration may well challenge the legality of Ngozi’s reappointment. We all know Trump’s obsession with election-rigging. We should also take careful note of Lighthizer’s 2023 book, No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China and Helping America’s Workers.
Many may accuse me of jumping to negative conclusions about another four years of Trump, but I am inclined to agree with the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf: Trump’s election victory “represents a decisive choice for the worse by the American people”.
Whatever Trump and his mesmerised zealots believe, the great majority of the most serious challenges facing us require serious and consistent multilateral cooperation.
Whether this cooperation is driven by new global institutions, reforms among existing ones or by newly emerging middle powers is less important than that a commitment to international cooperation is quickly restored. Absent such cooperation, all of us are in economic and physical danger wherever we live in the world. The sooner we Trump-proof our economies, the fewer will be harmed. — South China Morning Post
David Dodwell is the executive director of the Hong Kong-APEC Trade Policy Study Group, a trade policy think tank.
