Trump trade chief Greer expects US to ink more deals during Asia trip

Jamieson Greer Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said he expects President Donald Trump to sign more trade deals with countries in Southeast Asia during a trip later this year, without specifying the trading partners close to finalizing agreements.

“The president is going to do a swing through Asia at the end of October, and we expect that at that time, we’ll be able to sign some of these deals,” Greer said in an interview Tuesday on Fox Business.

The agreements Trump has already struck, including with the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, have been broad frameworks with the details to be finalized later. It was unclear if Greer was referring to previous deals or new pacts in his remarks. He added that the US has already announced some high-level details of deals he expects Trump to announce.

The top US trade negotiator said that he had just returned from Malaysia, where he met with “Southeast Asian countries, all of whom are essentially moving towards final, formal deals with the United States to open their markets.”

Trump has said that he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to be held next month in South Korea. Also in October is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders’ summit, which will be held in Malaysia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in July that Trump had accepted an invitation to attend that summit.

Zafrul Aziz, Malaysia’s investment, trade and industry minister, said last week that his country is aiming to conclude tariff talks with the US before the ASEAN summit. The US has imposed a 19% tariff on Malaysian goods separate from industry-specific levies.

Negotiations for lower tariff rates and less restrictive trade conditions with the US are ongoing for many countries, with details of agreements yet to be finalized.

The agreement with South Korea is one of the pacts that have yet to be formalized, with negotiations continuing over the terms of Seoul’s $350 billion investment pledge that Trump has described as an up-front commitment. The countries are also at odds over auto tariffs, with South Korea pushing for a swift resolution to obtain a lower 15% tariff rate on those exports.

The negotiations have also been roiled by an immigration raid on a battery plant in Georgia where hundreds of South Koreans were taken into custody, highlighting visa issues and raising questions about plans by Korean firms to invest in the US.

Separately, Vietnamese officials, whose country was hit with a 20% levy on exports, want the US to reconsider a ruling on seafood imports amid broader trade talks.

Southeast Asia has held up unexpectedly well in the face of the levies, prompting some economists to revise up growth estimates. Factory activity, exports and domestic economic drivers are still driving growth across much of the region. There are some exceptions — exports to the US from Malaysia fell 17% in August even as overall shipments to the world rose.