Asia Must Continue to Reinforce Links Amid Turmoil: DPM Gan

Damage to global trade due to America's 'Liberation Day' tariffs will be hard to undo

- Walter Sim

TOKYO - Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong on May 29 appealed to Asia to form agile partnerships and double down on regional integration amid deepening global strife.

While many countries in Asia are already part of overlapping partnerships of varying permutations — bilateral, regional and plurilateral — the inherent danger is if they rest on their laurels and not work on growing and strengthening these links, he said.

"We should recognise the challenges of the current turmoil and raise the ambition of each of these mutually reinforcing partnerships," DPM Gan said in a speech during the 30th Nikkei International Forum on the Future of Asia in Tokyo.

Exercising agility and flexibility in building ties is increasingly vital as the world grapples with what DPM Gan described as "the greatest uncertainty confronting us today", with questions lingering over what will happen after the US' 90-day reprieve over "reciprocal tariffs" ends on July 8.

"Things are changing all the time, every morning when (you) open the newspaper, there is always big news on trade and tariffs, and sometimes shocking news, and that is the first dish on your breakfast table," DPM Gan, who is also Singapore's Trade and Industry Minister, said in a conversation with the Nikkei's Singapore bureau chief Fumika Sato.

While he noted that the risk of a recession cannot be ruled out, another bad-case scenario was that it would be difficult to undo the damage caused by the sweeping "Liberation Day" tariffs.

"At the end of 90 days, whatever outcome that may be, the uncertainty remains that tariffs can be raised or reduced at any point in time," he said.

"This will result in weakening of the global trading system, and that is going to be the new order of the day. In time to come, this will be the new landscape."