The legal fiction behind America’s trade attack, Asia is the main victim of global energy crisis, Pakistan’s ‘indirect talks’ diplomacy, K-pop company’s sagging share-price, Takaichi survives Trump summit, and Cambodia’s push to restore ancient heritage.

Asian nations are resisting Donald Trump’s latest assault in his tariff war – investigations into 16 countries for supposedly exploiting excess manufacturing capacity and into 60 countries for allegedly using forced labour.

China, Japan and the European Union are on both lists of countries. The list of economies being investigated for excess manufacturing capacity includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. The list of those allegedly using forced labour includes Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

A Bloomberg.com analysis, written by columnist Mihir Sharma, an Indian economist, said the investigations were seen as a way for the Trump administration to reimpose tariffs after the US Supreme Court struck down the so-called Liberation Day tariffs.

“The list of countries is a bit of a giveaway that this entire process is a legal fiction,” Sharma wrote. “Picture an army of worthy [US Trade Representative] officials solemnly poring over Bangladesh’s structural overcapacity in manufacturing…Then imagine them turning with equal care to cataloguing the forced-labour practices of Norway.”

An article in The Hindu newspaper, written by New Delhi lawyer R.V. Anuradha, said the administration announced new tariffs on 24 February, immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, But under US law they had a shelf-life of 150 days.

Section 301 of the US Trade Act allowed the administration to impose tariffs when other countries’ trade practices were found to be unjustifiable under international trade rules.

“A clear anomaly in Section 301 is that it provides the US the right to unilateral determination of what is governed by rules of international trade,” Anuradha said. “To state the obvious, one cannot be the judge of one’s own cause.”

An opinion piece in South China Morning Post, by trade policy expert David Dodwell, said the investigations were being carried out with indecent haste. Section 301 investigations could take up to several years but in this case the written comment period for excess capacity probes ran from 17 March until 15 April, with hearings scheduled for early May. The aim was to implement the new tariffs before 24 July, when the temporary tariffs expired.

“Many believe these new tariffs are all about China,” Dodwell said.

China Daily, an official Beijing newspaper, said the forced-labour accusation was completely fabricated.

The investigations were set to heighten tariff risks for developing countries, Malaysia’s The Star said. It quoted trade expert Abhijit Das as calling the US moves bullying tactics.

And Thailand’s The Nation said the Thai government was officially challenging the “excess capacity” investigation. The core of its argument was that the trade surplus was the US was primarily generated by US multinationals that used the country as a manufacturing hub.

War winning Trump no friends in Asia

The notion that the Iran war is weighing heavily on America’s already-declining popularity in Asia ought to be an uncontroversial statement of fact.

This is view of Bhavan Jaipragas, a senior columnist with Singapore’s The Straits Times.

He is backed up by Anthony Rowley, a veteran financial commentator who writes for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Donald Trump, he says, has won no friends with his rash and widely condemned assault on Iran.

And economics writer Vikram Khanna, in a Straits........

© Pearls and Irritations