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At Southeast Asian summit, pushback against going it alone

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SINGAPORE — The annual gathering of Southeast Asian leaders began Tuesday with a warning from the host, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, about threats against international rules that underpin world stability and economic growth.

“The international order is at a turning point,” Lee said at the opening ceremony of the summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“The existing free, open and rules-based multilateral system, which has underpinned ASEAN’s growth and stability, has come under stress,” Lee said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and his resistance to multilateral agreements and institutions are viewed as an affront and a challenge in a region whose modern economies are largely driven by global trade.

Among issues on the agenda for ASEAN and other leaders attending meetings in Singapore this week, including U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, are talks on a new regional trade pact that would commit member countries and others in the Asian-Pacific region to opening markets further.

Lee said ASEAN and other participating countries including India and China, but not the United States, have made “substantive progress” on the market-opening initiative, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

However, it’s unclear if a deal will be reached in Singapore. Participants say India, for one, is balking at opening its markets wider to imports from China under the accord.

Trump is staying away from the Singapore summit, and also from the annual meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that will begin later this week in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Chinese leaders are busy burnishing their own free trade credentials as they speak out against Trump’s efforts to get Beijing to change policies aimed at making Chinese industries leaders in advanced technologies.

Three days after taking office, Trump pulled out of a Pacific Rim trade initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has ordered punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese products, among other measures, to address complaints over the U.S. trade deficit, China’s technology policies and other market access issues.

“All countries are linked in the same industrial chain in the world today and China and the U.S. are an important part of it. No one wants or expects to see an interruption of it,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Tuesday in a lecture on the sidelines of the summit.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The globalization of manufacturing has been a key factor driving dynamic growth in the regional economy, which has more than doubled in size since 2007 to $2.8 trillion in 2017.

The momentum must be in the direction of more, not less, open trade, said Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Otherwise, he warned, there could be a “domino effect” in which countries engage in increasingly protective measures against their rivals.

Inward-looking, protectionist policies have gained ground in ASEAN as elsewhere, he said.

“This is not the time to close our doors by invoking trade protectionism measures but instead we should be actively engaged in finding amicable solutions,” Mahathir said. “It is now that we must continue to expand our intraregional trade and deepen the economic integration within ASEAN.”

While talks on the ASEAN-centred trade accord stumble along, the 11 countries that have remained in the Trans-Pacific Partnership are preparing to inaugurate their revised trade deal.

Renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is due to take effect on Dec. 30.

Several other economies are hoping to join the pan-Pacific accord, including the Philippines and South Korea.

Japanese media reported that Taiwan’s representative in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, former chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Morris Chang, plans to ask Japan to back the island’s request to also become a member.

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Associated Press video journalist Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.

Annabelle Liang And Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press





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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

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Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.

The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.

“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.

She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”

North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.

Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.

These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.

A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.

This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.

“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.

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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

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From Conservative Party Communications

Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.

 

“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?

“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”

 

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