US tariff: Malaysia, Asean should focus on core principle of multilateralism, free trade, clear dialogues

The Star

The US tariffs situation is still fluid, says Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan, adding that Asean and Malaysia should go back to its core principle which is promoting multilateralism, free trade and good clear dialogues.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/f24yfrk3   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00And the reality is, this is a fluid situation that develops by the day, by the hour and so on.

00:08And at the end of the day, I think that's why when we look at it from an ASEAN point of view,

00:13we look at it from a Malaysia point of view, we go back to core principles.

00:18And in our core principles, we are a core promoter for multilateralism.

00:24We are a core promoter for free trade along the way.

00:27We also encourage good, clear dialogues in order to come to a relation that we can work through our problems along the way.

00:37I think that's important.

00:38In the short term, of course, there will be a lot of things that will populate the headlines and the news and everything along the way.

00:46We should not overreact on news and things along the way.

00:52But we should look at things that we can peel and act on things that we have in our control.

00:59Therefore, from an ASEAN point of view, what do we have in control that we can work through?

01:05We can work on making the ease or doing business better among ourselves.

01:09Because there's an untapped potential that we can work through.

01:12And we can continue to promote that within the principles that we all agree.

01:16that multilateralism is important, more trade coming along this is important, free trade mechanism is important,

01:24and simplification and doing more in terms of ease or doing business is important.

01:30And I think that's what are controllable.

01:32And the controllable ones, you do a lot more.

01:34And you step up.

01:35In areas that we may not have had enough integration, we may not have had enough relations, we work towards that.

01:43And again, I think the ASEAN philosophy has always been an economy that has centrality.

01:50We trade with everyone.

01:52We want to be able to do it because a much more open trading world creates more prosperity and more wealth for everybody along the way.

02:01So we will push.

02:03We understand that there will continue to be challenges.

02:06We understand there will continue to be attempts to do a lot of other things along the way.

02:11But we react with what tools that we can do along the way.

02:15And we promote balance and things to make sure it's better.

02:21It's beholden on all governments to try to create mechanisms that the long-term future is better for everybody along the way.

02:31It's also a responsibility of all governments to look at what we can do to manage the situation as what we have.

02:38So I think all governments are looking at that.

02:39And even the Malaysian government is looking at the impact that it's going to take.

02:43But we should not take decisions without working through how the impact is best managed.

02:50So I know you want me to answer very difficult questions, take positions in it.

02:56But as I said, these are positions that are evolving by the day, evolving by the hour.

03:02Work on things that you have in your control.

03:05Work on things that provide resilience to your economy.

03:09Work on things that you can actually create more opportunities that actually help us be better.

03:20Work on things that you can accomplish.

Category

Transcript

Recommended