Donald Trump, Xi Jinping spell out competing trade visions

Vietnam: The leaders of the US and China laid out sharply divergent visions for the future of global trade on Friday, with Donald Trump doubling down on his “America First” rhetoric, leaving counterpart Xi Jinping to defend the “irreversible” tide of globalisation.

Mr Xi, who has emerged as the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, and Trump, whose woes include dismal approval ratings at home, spoke moments apart at the Apec summit in the Vietnamese city of Danang.

Mr Trump in turns lavished praise on Asia-Pacific nations and accused them of undercutting the world’s largest economy, saying that US interests had been ill-served by the architecture of global trade.

He vowed that his country will “no longer tolerate” unfair trade, closed markets and intellectual property theft.

“We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of any more,” he added, taking a swipe at the World Trade Organisation for failing to police free trade infringements.

“I am always going to put America first the same way I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.”

In response, Mr Xi swiftly moved to occupy the space vacated by Mr Trump, positioning China as the champion of a world with fewer barriers to commerce.

He defended globalisation, which has seen his country pull itself from poverty to become a superpower in three decades, calling it an “irreversible historical trend”.

But as gripes over trade imbalances, job losses and social inequality abound, he conceded that free trade philosophy needed to be repurposed to be “more open, more balanced, more equitable”

Ahead of his speech, China announced it will further open the country’s financial markets to foreign firms, a key demand from the US and other global investors who have long complained about strict limits on access to the world’s number-two economy.

Mr Trump arrived in Vietnam from Beijing, where he sought to build a consensus against North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

In China he was gushing in his praise of Mr Xi, calling his host “a very special man” in a trip rich with photo opportunities but lacking concrete outcomes on tackling key issues such as North Korea.