Speaker:

Professor Paul Evans
Professor Emeritus,
University of British Columbia
Senior Fellow,
East Asian Institute, NUS

Date & Time:

Wednesday, 3 August 2025
3:30 pm – 5:00 pm (Singapore Time)

Venue:

EAI Conference Room
NUS Bukit Timah Campus, Tower Block #06-01,
469A Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259770

Registration is required:

Please register at this link: https://forms.office.com/r/S4heHXbwtt

Synopsis:

The unravelling of the global trading system via unilateral tariffs and industrial policies is just one part of a new era of geo-economics colliding with geo-politics. Interdependence is increasingly securitised and the US-led international order is fragmenting.

There has been very little collective response to the Trump administration’s tariffs but this does not hide the fact that most countries favour an open global system to one characterised by naked self-interest, zero-sum thinking and what Mark Carney calls the “monetisation of hegemony”.

The response needs to be bigger than bilateral deals and unilateral diversification measures that, like the recent tariffs and other U.S. policies, have left the international community bewildered, raising a series of questions unanswered. What are the institutions and principles needed for collective action minus the United States? At the global level, what can a revitalised WTO, World Bank and IMF provide? Regionally, how can institutions created without US participation (especially RCEP and the CPTPP) be reinvigorated and their agendas harmonised?  Can the ideals of APEC be defended and advanced?  Is China in or out and what substantive leadership can Beijing be expected to provide?

Finally, what can regional think tanks do to push this re-configuration forward?