Lawrence Wong
speaker
281 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Oct 2025
last heard 19 Nov
Lawrence Wong’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 1.
Appearances
Stable multilateral framework that we were all familiar with is unraveling.
That framework was optimized for trade efficiency.
In today's world, countries are more concerned about security and resilience.
So countries everywhere are prepared to accept some inefficiency, higher cost in return for higher security and resilience.
But this is now being done unilaterally, country by country taking its own actions.
And that's just not sustainable.
In the worst case, you will end up with something like what happened after the Smoot-Hawley terrorist in the 1930s.
Someone does something, another one retaliates.
There will be a dynamic where it's just escalating.
And before too long, we will end up with devastating consequences.
On the other hand, we know that the WTO, which was meant to solve these problems, isn't working.
We would like to see a new framework in place
It's not easy to get that happen now, but ideally a new framework that finds ways in which countries can legitimately exercise and protect their own national interests, but with restraint, with some shared rules, and not on the basis that you can unilaterally do things to coerce another country or to punish another country.
which is somewhat happening now.
So how do we get there?
And I think it's very hard for all of us to imagine ways to get there, but I think we should not give up trying.
And that's what we would like to do, which is work with like-minded countries
Some of the, you know, we have a future of investment and trade partnership with 15 or so countries doing this, but also working with the WTO, working with regional groupings like the CPTPP and the EU.
And all of these efforts
ultimately are not just about tariffs.
Showing 101–120 of 281 · page 6 of 15
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