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At Southeast Asian summit, pushback against going it alone

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SINGAPORE — The annual gathering of Southeast Asian leaders began Tuesday with a warning from the host, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, about threats against international rules that underpin world stability and economic growth.

“The international order is at a turning point,” Lee said at the opening ceremony of the summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“The existing free, open and rules-based multilateral system, which has underpinned ASEAN’s growth and stability, has come under stress,” Lee said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and his resistance to multilateral agreements and institutions are viewed as an affront and a challenge in a region whose modern economies are largely driven by global trade.

Among issues on the agenda for ASEAN and other leaders attending meetings in Singapore this week, including U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, are talks on a new regional trade pact that would commit member countries and others in the Asian-Pacific region to opening markets further.

Lee said ASEAN and other participating countries including India and China, but not the United States, have made “substantive progress” on the market-opening initiative, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

However, it’s unclear if a deal will be reached in Singapore. Participants say India, for one, is balking at opening its markets wider to imports from China under the accord.

Trump is staying away from the Singapore summit, and also from the annual meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that will begin later this week in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Chinese leaders are busy burnishing their own free trade credentials as they speak out against Trump’s efforts to get Beijing to change policies aimed at making Chinese industries leaders in advanced technologies.

Three days after taking office, Trump pulled out of a Pacific Rim trade initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has ordered punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese products, among other measures, to address complaints over the U.S. trade deficit, China’s technology policies and other market access issues.

“All countries are linked in the same industrial chain in the world today and China and the U.S. are an important part of it. No one wants or expects to see an interruption of it,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Tuesday in a lecture on the sidelines of the summit.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The globalization of manufacturing has been a key factor driving dynamic growth in the regional economy, which has more than doubled in size since 2007 to $2.8 trillion in 2017.

The momentum must be in the direction of more, not less, open trade, said Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Otherwise, he warned, there could be a “domino effect” in which countries engage in increasingly protective measures against their rivals.

Inward-looking, protectionist policies have gained ground in ASEAN as elsewhere, he said.

“This is not the time to close our doors by invoking trade protectionism measures but instead we should be actively engaged in finding amicable solutions,” Mahathir said. “It is now that we must continue to expand our intraregional trade and deepen the economic integration within ASEAN.”

While talks on the ASEAN-centred trade accord stumble along, the 11 countries that have remained in the Trans-Pacific Partnership are preparing to inaugurate their revised trade deal.

Renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is due to take effect on Dec. 30.

Several other economies are hoping to join the pan-Pacific accord, including the Philippines and South Korea.

Japanese media reported that Taiwan’s representative in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, former chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Morris Chang, plans to ask Japan to back the island’s request to also become a member.

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Associated Press video journalist Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.

Annabelle Liang And Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press





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Border Patrol Agent Lashes Out At Biden-Harris Admin, Calling Job ‘Migrant Concierge Service’ Amid Border Crisis

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Mariane Angela

The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies.

A Border Patrol agent criticized the recent changes in his role under the Biden-Harris administration, condemning it as transforming into a “migrant concierge service,” according to The New York Post Friday.

Zachary Apotheker, who joined the force in 2020, voiced his frustration over the shift in his duties under the Biden administration from intercepting drug traffickers and apprehending illegal entrants to what he now sees as aiding migrant entry, in an interview with the NYP. Apotheker highlighted concerns about security and vetting under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that over 8 million migrants have crossed the southern border since January 2021, including members of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua.

“I don’t want to bring people into the country. That’s not what I signed up to do,” Apotheker told NYP. Apotheker’s distress is further compounded by over 1.7 million illegal migrants who have evaded capture since Jan. 2021, as he shared encounters with victims of migrant-committed crimes, naming individuals and emphasizing the personal toll on him.

“I’m an apolitical person and I just want to do my job and protect this country,” the agent said, the NYP reported. “When I see people from another country coming here, getting resources beyond what the American citizen can get, that’s where I have to draw the line. And then they’re going out and committing crimes and we’re still not removing them and American citizens are being killed, women are being raped.”

Apotheker and multiple Border Patrol sources have raised concerns to the NYP about the inadequate documentation for unaccompanied migrant children under 14, including missing biometric data, complicating their safe relocation to families or sponsors in the U.S. He highlighted a backlog in the immigration system, noting that 291,000 migrant children have been released in the U.S. without court dates, with an additional 32,000 failing to appear for their scheduled hearings.

The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies. “However bad you think it is now, it’s only going to be worse,” he warned.

The White House and Border Patrol did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Rumored deal with Bloc Quebec party could keep Trudeau Liberals in power, stave off election

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country”

The possibility of an early Canadian election may not come to fruition after Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet hinted that an alliance between the separatist party and the Liberals under Justin Trudeau could become a reality.

Rumors began to swirl that a Bloc-Liberal deal could happen after Bloc House leader Alain Therrien said Sunday that the party’s “objectives remain the same, but the means to get there will be much easier.”

“We will negotiate and seek gains for Quebec … our balance of power has improved, that’s for sure,” he said, as reported by the Canadian Press.

Therrien made the comments in light of the possibility of a federal election taking place before fall 2025 after New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh pulled his official support for Trudeau’s Liberals last week.

Late last month, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre called on Singh to pull his support for Trudeau’s Liberals so that an election could be held.

Therrien also noted that the NDP pulling its support of the Trudeau Liberals has created a “window of opportunity” that his party may exploit. The Canadian Press reported that a person close to the Bloc party said directly that the NDP had in essence handed the party the balance of power.

As it stands now, the Bloc has 32 seats to the NDP’s 24, which is more than enough to prop up the Liberals, who have 154 seats.

As for Blanchet, he told the media on Monday that he was feeling “good” about his party’s newfound power. He then took a shot at Poilievre, saying he is more or less like Trudeau. “There are plenty of issues on which (Poilievre’s) in the same position as Justin Trudeau,” Blanchet said.

“Show us that you’re different, Justin Trudeau, apart from being against abortion, then we’ll see what you have to offer,” he said.

While most Conservative MPs are pro-life, Poilievre supports abortion and has a poor track record when it comes to life and family issues, with Campaign Life Coalition having given him a “red light” rating.

News of a possible Bloc-Liberal deal to keep Trudeau in power drew the immediate ire of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country,” she wrote Monday on X. “If the Liberals go down this path, we need an election to be called immediately.”

On Tuesday, Blanchet responded to Smith’s comments to reporters by saying he found her remarks “funny,” adding that “Canadians are suddenly very interested in us.”

As for Trudeau, his woes continue to mount. LifeSiteNews recently reported how national elections campaign director for Canada’s federal Liberal Party announced he was stepping down because, according to sources close to the party, he does not think Trudeau can win a fourth consecutive election.

Recent polls show that the Conservatives under Poilievre would win a majority government in a landslide in an election held today. Singh’s NDP and Trudeau’s Liberals would lose a massive number of seats.

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