Donald Trump has achieved his first global peace deal. China, Japan and South Korea have kissed and made up after years of trade quarrels. They have pledged to deepen ties and reorganise the Asian and global trading systems under what amounts to Chinese leadership.

The picture blazoned across Asia’s front pages – though barely registering in the United States – showed the trade ministers of the three economic powers holding hands in a collective gesture of Asian defiance.

South Korean Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun, Japanese Trade Minister Yoji Muto and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao after meeting in Seoul.Credit: AP

It is one of the most striking economic defeats suffered by America that I have witnessed in more than 40 years covering international affairs. Trump’s “liberation day” cuts two ways.

The trade ministers agreed to forge ahead with free-trade agreements, but also to flesh out the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s largest trade pact on paper – and a venture viewed by US hardliners as a Trojan Horse for Chinese commercial hegemony.

“For all intents and purposes, the US is now a rogue nation when it comes to trade,” said Michael Gasiorek, director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex.

“I don’t think there is a global trade war going on. The US is fighting a trade war with everybody, but the others are keen to co-operate even more.”

China has launched a charm offensive to woo European officials and companies, to the point of inviting the heads of Mercedes and BMW to meet President Xi Jinping.

European Union trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic has been on a recce mission to Beijing to explore a Sino-European truce to reorder global trade.

This was unthinkable just weeks ago, when the Trade Commission’s mantra was “derisking” the supply chain, and the two sides were daggers drawn over EU tariffs on electric vehicles.

China is still smarting over the EU’s sweeping investigations........

© The Age