BADEN-BADEN, Germany, (MILLAT/APP/AFP) –
Finance ministers from the world’s top nations gather in Germany
on Friday as fears grow of a looming trade war over US
President Donald Trump’s America First policy.
Trump has already torn up a trans-Pacific free trade
pact, threatened punitive tariffs against multinationals
with factories outside the United States and
attacked “currency manipulation” by export giant China.
And his stated aim of keeping jobs at home by making it
costly for American companies to outsource is likely to dominate
talks at the G20 gathering of finance ministers and central bankers
in the western German spa town of Baden-Baden.
Trump’s emissary, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is
set to face scrutiny from Washington’s key trading partners for
clues on whether the world’s biggest economy fully intends to
abandon its long-standing support of open markets and free trade.
On the eve of the meeting, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a rare joint
pledge, saying they would “together fight for free trade and
open markets”.
The statement by the leaders of the two major exporters also
came a day before Merkel is due to meet Trump in Washington for
the first time, when the chancellor is expected to make a push
for open markets.