Exclusive | Urging China, EU cooperation, former WTO head Pascal Lamy points to ‘common ground’
Throwing his support behind globalisation efforts, Lamy decries Trump’s ‘mafia-like hostage-taking’ and says WTO may have to work, for now, without the US
Against the backdrop of tariff negotiations between the United States and various countries, there is “common ground” on which China and the European Union can work together and ensure that mutual and open trade remains a rules-based game, according to a former head of the World Trade Organization.
“We should do what China did to us 30 years ago,” Pascal Lamy told the Post on Wednesday on the sidelines of the UBS Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong, with the message being: “Welcome to the EU, provided you produce here.”
Chinese investment in electric vehicles is the kind of investment that the EU wants, added the Frenchman, who is now coordinator of the Jacques Delors think tank network based in Paris.
The other common interest that China and the EU share is their decarbonisation drive, because “the direction of travel” between both sides is the same and “there is a lot of cooperation capacity there”, he noted. However, he added that China was not “moving rapidly enough” by still relying heavily on coal amid its decarbonisation push.
Lamy’s comment came as the world has been grappling with uncertainties introduced by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies since his return to the White House in January.
This is mafia-like hostage-taking