Being able to identify the policy changes that will transform the future is normally far from easy. Arguably, however, in the week past, the remarks of two world leaders make plain how the trajectory of global history is about to change.
In a formal policy pronouncement on November 21, the US President-elect, Donald Trump, confirmed that on his first day in office he would sign a note of intent to leave the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Pacific Rim free trade agreement that does not involve China. Instead, he said, his administration would negotiate “fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores”.
His pre-recorded video coincided with a speech made one day earlier in Peru by China’s President, Xi Jinping. There China’s leader made clear that his country intends stepping into the trade policy vacuum the new US policy will leave. He did so by offering first the completion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership