He will also discuss the report his government released two years ago in Jakarta, called “Inverted: Australia’s South East Economic Strategy to 2040”, and say it is already producing results in part because Australia’s two-way trade with ASEAN has never been higher.
Charging
But every year a record is set, because Southeast Asia is growing.
However, government figures show South East Asia is Australia’s second largest bilateral trading partner, behind China. And of the 10 ASEAN nations (11 now, with Timor-Leste joining on Sunday) six are in Australia’s top 15 export markets.
That’s why it’s important to show up.
Which brings us back to Trump, whose interest in Southeast Asia beyond acting as a peacemaker is questionable, even though Bloomberg reports that ASEAN is now a bigger source of goods for the United States than China.
On the sidelines of the summit, which he attended for an afternoon, Trump signed a series of trade and tariff agreements, including vague pacts on critical minerals with Thailand and Malaysia.
Base tariffs among the ASEAN bloc are generally 19 percent, but as low as 10 percent for Singapore and Timor-Leste, and as high as 40 percent for Laos and Myanmar’s barbaric military regime.
Some nations have obtained a limited product exemption. None have come out with lower base rates.
But Trump’s main reason for attending ASEAN for the first time since 2017 was to preside over an expanded peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia, whose five-day border war ended in July with the intervention of Trump, who threatened bad tariff deals, and Anwar.
Trump wants a Nobel Prize, so he made his visit conditional on getting the signatures.
Donald Trump took advantage of the fanfare and attention.Credit: Bloomberg
This does not mean that it was useless. Instead, both sides began removing heavy weapons from the border at 9pm (12pm AEDT) that night, according to the Cambodian government.
The new agreements were particularly significant for the 18 Cambodian prisoners of war held in Thailand since the original ceasefire. This newspaper spoke with the parents of Vy Chhorvon, one of the prisoners of war, in their modest town house in early August. We saw them again the next day because, like us, they had heard the empty rumors of a release and so they rushed for two hours to the designated border crossing.
When it turned out to be fake, we had means to drive to another place to stay. Vy’s family did not.
Their father told us on Sunday night that all of the 18’s families had gone to a hotel in the capital, Phnom Penh. While it seemed premature, given the substantial preconditions listed in the new peace agreement, the father’s information was that the prisoners of war would be released on Monday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at ASEAN on Sunday.Credit:
US President Donald Trump speaks with Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia, after arriving in Kuala Lumpur.Credit: Bloomberg
“I guess I don’t need to do it,” Trump said at Sunday’s signing. “But if I can take the time to save millions of lives… I can’t think of anything better to do.”
The ceremony was a love affair, as Trump delighted the audience with how he had to cancel a round of golf in Scotland for the more worthy goal of peace. He recalled, with curiosity and affection (“I love this job”), those intense conversations with Anwar and the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia when the pressure was on at the end of July.
Charging
While addressing the trio on stage, it was unclear whether Trump was aware that the current leader, Anutin Charnvirakul, has only been in office since early last month.
Trump also used the stage to discuss the wars that have supposedly ended his administration. He said there was one left to resolve. Presumably these were Russia and Ukraine.
Even in ASEAN, Trump seemed unaware of the war in Myanmar, possibly the largest humanitarian crisis the bloc has ever experienced. Then, he left.
