TLTP
WILMINGTON
US President-elect Joe Biden said the United States needs to negotiate with allies to set global trading rules to counter China’s growing influence, but declined to say whether he would join a new China-backed Asian trade pact signed on Sunday last.
Asked at a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware, whether the United States would join the Asian-focused 15-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, Biden said he could not yet discuss US trade policy because he had not taken office “and there’s only one president at a time”.
“We make up 25 percent … of the economy in the world,” Biden said of the US. “We need to be aligned with the other democracies, another 25 percent or more so that we can set the rules of the road instead of having China and others dictate outcomes because they are the only game in town.”
The signing of the RCEP at a regional summit in Hanoi creates the world’s largest trade agreement, covering 30 percent of the global economy and a third of its population, and bringing together Asian powers China, Japan and South Korea for the first time.
It also marks another setback for US influence in the region after President Donald Trump in 2017 quit the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, negotiated while Biden was vice president.
While TPP members including Japan and many free-trade advocates have expressed hope that Biden would rejoin that trade pact, he has said little about the subject and advisers have said he would not immediately remove tariffs on Chinese goods.
