The Ariyana International Conference Center in Danang recently attracted the world’s attention with the presence of two heads of states from the two leading economies.

Trump came to the Conference Center straight away from the airport to begin his speech. After praising the accomplishments of APEC member economies, he went to the point: the core of the partnership must be equity and reciprocity.

However, the 45th US President said while the US has opened its economy and lowered trade barriers, other countries haven't opened their markets sufficiently to the US products. He said the trade deficit with China is ‘unacceptable’.

He said the US has been treated unfairly and the US people have been hurt.

Trump said that the US is willing to cooperate with other countries for mutual benefits, but won’t join large-scale trade agreements which may clip US wings, putting emphasis on bilateral trade agreements. 

Turning up several minutes later at the same podium, President Xi Jinping showed quite a contrary viewpoint.

Xi affirmed that globalization has made great contributions to world economies in the last few decades, and that globalization is irreversible.

He went on to say that countries need to join hands to increase investments and development, and expand liberalization to bring benefits to all people. 

He called for support of multilateral trade and free trade in Asia-Pacific, affirming that opening up a free trade area in Asia-Pacific is a long-term goal.

“The views of the two presidents are contrary, but both of them are interesting,” commented Nguyen Dinh Luong, former chief of the Vietnamese Delegation for negotiations for the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement.

However, Luong believes that Trump’s views on developing bilateral relations instead of pushing up multilateral trade agreements is unfeasible. He said globalization is inevitable and no matter what Trump does, the US economy still has close links with the world economy.

“Now, the currents of economy reach every corner in the world. How will Trump block the current?” he said.

He doubts that US multinationals would advocate Trump’s view. If multilateral relations bring great benefits to them, they won’t “sit still and see their opportunities to make money missing”.

About Xi’s speech, Luong commented that it reflects the growing trend of globalization. 

However, Luong said, every country, especially large economies such as the US and China, follow their own path.

“The US follows its own way, while China exploits globalization in another way,” he said.

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