Southeast Asia Summit Is a `Critical Test' for U.S., Business Group Says
President Barack Obama should complete plans to host Southeast Asian leaders this year, amid criticism of the U.S. for skipping a trade ministers meeting this week in Vietnam, the head of a U.S. business group said.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations heads are awaiting the where and when of a summit with Obama, Alexander Feldman said yesterday at the Asean conference, also attended by China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, the European Union, New Zealand and Russia. The U.S. absence was “a disappointment,” Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said.
Asean leaders “don’t know whether they’re going to Washington or New York; they don’t know whether they’re going in September or October,” Feldman, president of the U.S.-Asean Business Council, said in an interview. “This is a critical test for the administration, to see if they can balance domestic and international politics.”
Obama, who became the first U.S. leader to meet with the 10-member Asean last year, may meet counterparts from the group toward the end of this year, Surin told journalists in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Aug. 26. The president has pledged to double U.S. exports within five years, and Asean is the fourth-biggest market for American goods, Feldman said.
Recovery Motor
“The world economy more and more shifts toward” Asia, European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told journalists in Danang yesterday. “It is clear to me that Asean is not only a growth engine but that it will also serve as a motor of recovery for other regions of the world.”
While the Obama administration has taken steps to boost relations between the U.S. and Southeast Asia, the lack of an American government presence in Danang represented a lost opportunity, Feldman said.
“Asean is critically important to our domestic agenda, to the president’s national export initiative,” Feldman said.
Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming used his visit to the Danang meeting as a chance to argue for use of the yuan in trade between China and Asean, while the European Union released a statement pitching its desire for “greater economic and political engagement” with the bloc.
China’s total trade with Asean surpassed that of the U.S. in the past decade, growing to $178 billion last year. China’s share of Southeast Asia’s total commerce has increased to 11.6 percent from 4 percent in that time, while the U.S. portion fell to 9.7 percent from 15 percent, Asean statistics show.
Concluding arrangements for a U.S.-Asean summit “is important not only certainly from a strategic and international point of view, but also from a pure domestic point of view, because of the great opportunity” for exports to the region, Feldman said. “This is a tricky game, and these are big stakes.”
--Jason Folkmanis in Danang, with assistance from Diep Ngoc Pham in Danang. Editors: Nate Hosoda, Jim McDonald
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Folkmanis in Danang, Vietnam, at folkmanis@bloomberg.net
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