Due to countries not buying his hard-selling tactic of the Trans-Pacific Pact (TPP), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong finally threw in the white towel at his speech at the PAP conference yesterday (Dec 4) confirming that there is no TPP.
“Without the US, there is no TPP. Singapore would make the best of other trade deals such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. We have to accept the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”
Speaking to his ruling party PAP members, the PAP secretary-general who indirectly inherited the position from his father Lee Kuan Yew, said that he is unhappy that other countries are taking care of their citizens by rejecting unrestrained international trading proposals that empowers corporations:
“I do not know how far this trend will go, but I do not like the direction the trend is going. Because if more countries turn this way, the world is going to change, and it’s going to change for the worse.”
PM Lee Hsien Loong then threatened Singaporeans saying that they will be “finished” if the country pursue policies adopted by Europe and America which he called “protectionist and nativist”:
“We ourselves in Singapore must stay open, because if we close up like other countries, our people will be finished.”