'America First' policy debated at Asia Society

Consuls general from China, India, Japan and South Korea discuss Trump's impact on trade

The Trump administration's "America First" policy was scrutinized by the consuls general of India, Japan, South Korea and China at an Asia Society seminar.

The US, which is the largest trading partner of each of the four countries, has major trade disputes with all of them.

The Asia Society Northern California in San Francisco hosted the seminar on Wednesday.

In his presidential campaign of 2016, Donald Trump emphasized "America First''. Trump explained then that what he meant was that his administration would prevent other nations from taking advantage of the United States.

Since taking office, Trump has advocated the use of tariffs in the global trading system. The Trump administration also has withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, and the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) with South Korea.

The US revoked preferential trade status for India on June 5. Though China is atop his agenda with the current trade dispute between the two countries, Trump is also highly critical of Japan's trade policies.

The biggest concern of businesspeople in the Asia-Pacific region is unpredictability, Japanese Consul General in San Francisco Tomochika Uyama said at the forum. He said he hoped the US would go back to the TPP.

From India's perspective, the "America First" policy would be "something dangerous" if it were an "isolation policy", said Indian Consul General in San Francisco Sanjay Panda.

"In today's world, you can't have isolation. You have to work together and face problems together," said Panda. "The biggest crisis in the world is water, not terrorism. To solve the global challenges, we have to work together around the clock."

Chinese Deputy Consul General in San Francisco Ren Faqiang agreed, saying that "America First" should mean shouldering more responsibilities and engaging in more international cooperation with other countries.

Mark Cohen, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, said after the forum that "what the president is saying is not the traditional 'America First'. He's saying that we need to think about whether these institutions that were developed by the US at the end of World War II are now serving the best interests of the US.

"If you are going to say the system I built no longer works so well for me, then you'll have to let go a little bit. I think that process hasn't really been thought through so well in the US," he said.

Cohen said it's not as simple as saying every country looks after its own priorities. "That may be true for a lot of smaller countries. It may be true even for larger countries that are still focusing on their development, but when you are a country that developed this whole global order after World War II, you are really talking about something different," he said.