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G20-SUMMIT-DIPLOMACY-POLITICS
G20 opens under assault from Trump on collective action
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – G20 powers open two days of summit
talks in crisis-hit Argentina on Friday after a stormy buildup dominated by
US President Donald Trump’s consensus-bucking crusade to realign world trade.
Shortly before the summit kicks off, Trump’s “America First” charge will
bear fruit with the signing in Buenos Aires of a successor to the North
American free trade pact NAFTA.
The revamped accord, called the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), looks a
lot like the one it replaces. But enough has been tweaked for Trump to
declare victory on behalf of the US workers he claims were cheated by NAFTA.
Yet, underlining that the new deal may not be quite the game-changer he
professes, the signing will be executed by senior trade negotiators from the
three countries rather than their leaders attending the G20.
After imposing punishing tariffs on Chinese goods and threatening more to
come in January, Trump also has China in his sights as he prepares to meet
President Xi Jinping on the G20 margins.
Following the USMCA signing, and once Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri
has opened the first of the summit’s two days, a mass protest is planned for
central Buenos Aires Friday afternoon.
Argentines are grappling with soaring inflation and unemployment caused by
an economic crisis, which has led to a deeply unpopular bailout from the
International Monetary Fund.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t have houses and don’t have work. They
are not focusing on the people who have needs,” barber Ariel Villegas, 47,
said at one protest Thursday outside the Argentine Congress building.
The government is vowing zero tolerance of violence as it hosts its biggest
ever international gathering, and says it has won promises from the protest
organizers to keep the streets calm.
– Merkel delayed by plane trouble –
The G20 summit will be accompanied by an array of diplomatic initiatives
with several bilateral meetings by the leaders attending, including Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of the leaders due to sit down with
Trump on Friday. But she will miss the summit’s opening after her plane was
forced to make an emergency landing in Cologne due to a technical problem.
Her temporary absence could complicate French President Emmanuel Macron’s
attempts to build a European front against Trump at a meeting of EU leaders
attending the G20 on Friday morning.
But late on Thursday, Macron was defiant as he rejected those who wish to
confront economic challenges by being “bellicose, isolationist and closing
down borders,” praising instead the poverty-slashing benefits accrued under
the globalization of recent decades.
– Dispute on climate –
The French leader also defended the Paris Agreement on climate change,
which is under assault by Trump and by Jair Bolsonaro, the incoming, far-
right president of G20 member Brazil.
G20 sources said climate change was emerging as the biggest stumbling block
to agreement on a joint communique in Buenos Aires when the summit concludes
on Saturday.
Trump has yanked the United States out of the Paris pact, and his
opposition to collective action stands in defiance of scientists’
increasingly urgent warnings that the planetary threat needs policy redress
now.
But with a major UN meeting on climate change starting next week in Poland
straight after the G20, UN chief Antonio Guterres said in Buenos Aires that
“this is a make-it-or-break-it moment.”
Two major summits this year, of the Group of Seven democracies and the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, ended without the once-routine
statements, with Trump refusing to go along with the G7 due to a feud with
his host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Will we even have a communique? It really is an open question,” said
former Canadian negotiator Thomas Bernes, a senior fellow at the Ontario-
based Centre for International Governance Innovation.
BSS/AFP/MRI/0816 hrs