The Latest: Japan’s Abe touts trade deals, calls for change

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The Latest on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (all times local):

12:30 p.m.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has touted the benefits of two recent “mega deals” in trade. He said Japan, the European Union and the United States must work together to reform the World Trade Organization, notably on rules about government subsidies.

Abe’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, marked his return to the elite gathering after five years.

He referred to the Trans-Pacific Partnership wrapped up next year and the looming entry into force on Feb. 1 of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership agreement.

Abe urged a Davos conference hall to “rebuild trust toward the system for international trade.”

The allusion to government subsidies and call for a trading system that protects intellectual property rights amounted to a reference to China, which the Trump administration has castigated for failing to be transparent on its government subsidies and for swiping intellectual property.

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11:20 a.m.

Bono, who has been a prominent campaigner on development issues for decades, says capitalism is not immoral: “It’s amoral.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the U2 frontman said capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than “any other ism” but that “it is a wild beast and if not tamed it can chew up a lot of people on the way.”

Those who have not benefited from capitalism are, he said, driving “the politics in our home towards populism.”

Bono also said that he’s had a change of heart with regard to the International Monetary Fund, an institution he once considered to be the “Great Satan” for its “bullying of junior economies.”

Heaping praise on IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, Bona said the IMF has changed.

The development community, he said, values Lagarde’s “tough mindedness” but he added he would still be on her “case.”

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10:40 a.m.

Guido Sandleris, president of the Central Bank of Argentina, says the country is “much better prepared” for the challenge of a slowdown in global trade and the rise in interest rates in major economies, following its recession.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Sandleris said Argentina had previously not been strong enough to cope with those twin challenges amid high inflation at home and big fiscal and trade deficits. As a result, President Mauricio Macri negotiated a $56 billion stand-by financing facility with the International Monetary Fund.

Though the deficits are heading in the right direction, Sandleris said inflation remains too high.

Sandleris defended the government’s belt-tightening measures and said protests in the country are more to do with the recession — the economy is expected to shrink further this year — than any anger against the IMF.

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10:10 a.m.

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed chief executive says she’s “quite worried” that the rules-based system that has governed global trade for decades is under threat.

Speaking Wednesday at the World Economic Forum at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, Carrie Lam said any diminution in the traditional rules could lead to rising political tensions around the world.

She said Hong Kong has prospered “on the basis of free and open trade.”

Worries over the future of the rules governing global trade have been stoked over the past couple of years, certainly since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. His administration has taken particular umbrage against China and the two have imposed tariffs on each other that has raised concerns of a full-scale trade war.

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