Tariffs overshadow diplomacy as Asean foreign ministers press on with meetings

Asean chair Malaysia urges members to enhance regional trade and integration

- Hariz Baharudin

KUALA LUMPUR - The second day of the Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting and Related Meetings on July 10 was packed with high-level engagements, including some 10 separate meetings between the grouping and key partners.

But despite the intense diplomatic schedule, one topic continued to dominate conversations in and outside the halls of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre: tariffs.

In the media centre, journalists were glued to laptops and phones, tracking updates on how their countries were handling letters from Washington outlining revised United States tariff rates.

Eight out of 10 Asean countries have received formal notifications over the past two days, with Singapore and Vietnam's expected to follow soon.

Diplomats and ministers, too, appeared preoccupied, with the mood reflected in several speeches delivered during the day.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met regional ministers at the Asean Post-Ministerial Conference on July 10, defended the tariff hikes as necessary for fairer trade.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said US President Donald Trump believes the state of global trade is unfair to America, and that for far too long, imbalances have been allowed to develop.

"So this is a globalised effort to reset US trade in a way that's beneficial to the United States. And not just in dollars and cents, but also in our own domestic industrial capacity. So this has been made clear to countries around the world," he said.

For Asean, the US' trade policy upheaval has been a reminder of how external shocks can hijack even the most meticulously planned diplomatic calendar.

President Trump on July 8 announced hefty levies of between 25 per cent and 40 per cent on six Asean nations. Singapore has not received any formal notification from the White House.