BANGKOK, Nov 3 — The ongoing US trade tension against China and sanctions against Iran is creating problems for many other growing economies worldwide, including Malaysia, the prime minister said today.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the US government’s actions under the leadership of its president Donald Trump was creating a ripple effect for all the trading partners of both China and Iran.
“Basically it was not started by China. And China itself wants to put an end to this trade war.
“But it is the stand of the US which is causing this thing to go on and on and becoming worse and worse,” he told Malaysian media after participating in the 10th Asean-United Nations Summit here.
Dr Mahathir had expressed his views on the US-China trade war during a dialogue at yesterday’s Asean Business and Investment Summit ahead of the 35th Asean Summit that officially kicked off today.
Today, he elaborated on his remark, saying his concern is also shared by the other leaders in the South-east Asia regional grouping.
“They all think it is disrupting growth and trade. They would like a peaceful world where they can trade with other countries,” he said.
He added that at the moment, the end of the trade disputes was not in sight.
“It may end if President Trump is not reelected. If he is reelected, it could be another five years of trade wars,” he said.
Dr Mahathir said he does not believe the US actions were reflective of the general sentiment of its business community but were solely the decisions of one person — Trump.
“I hope that this will be resolved one way or another.”
The prime minister also told Malaysian journalists that he had reiterated his discontent with the invocation of veto powers by the UN’s Security Council five permanent members during the summit.
He said he again took the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with the double standards being practised and “how, despite them setting up the UN to eliminate wars, they have been the cause of most of it”.
However, he said one thing that he did not mention then was about the economic sanctions, which is being felt by Malaysia through its ties with Iran.
“One thing that was not mentioned is about sanction. When you apply sanctions, it’s against the law.
“There is no provision in the UN that a country that is dissatisfied with another country can apply sanction to that country as well as to other countries trading with that nation. So that sanction doesn’t apply to one country alone.
“We are, Malaysia is now being sanctioned because it cannot trade with a very big trading partner of ours, Iran,” he said, adding that other countries faced the same problem.
“They talk so much about rule-based trade and relations, but the very people who talk about this or invented these ideas are the same people who are not adhering to their own principles,” he said, without naming the country imposing the sanction.
The US imposed sanctions against Iran last November over a nuclear weapons programme that effectively froze US$12 billion (RM49.9 billion) worth of the Middle Eastern country’s assets and an embargo with its trade partners.
The world superpower also threatened similar sanctions against other countries trading with Iran.
Dr Mahathir had last month hinted at that the US was exerting pressure against smaller nations that were friendly to Iran by threatening to shut down its banks abroad if it did not also close the accounts of Iranians in Malaysia.
The 94-year-old did not name the world power behind the “bullying” tactic, but said people could make a guess.
