On Monday, Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister of Malaysia blames the tariff war between China and the U.S. in rising protectionism to affect his export-reliant countries with trade sanctions.
Without mentioning the source of probable sanctions over the Southeast Asian nation, Mahathir was saddened by the fact that the supporters of free commerce were currently indulging preventing trade practices over a large scale.
In a conference at Kuala Lumpur, he refers to the China-U.S. trade war on their misfortune of being involved in the disagreement of the two. They are linked with both the markets economically as well as physically on geographical grounds. Proposals are being rumored to target Malaysia with sanctions.Till August from January, China and the United States have been Malaysia’s two largest export destinations this year and the biggest destination is Singapore.
Mahathir informs that Malaysia have been co-operating with their local neighbors to a larger extent so as to provide a cushion against the influence between the two superpower’s collision.
There have been complaints from Mahathir towards powerful nations to have bullied them on reference to European countries campaign against palm oil, the agricultural backbone of Malaysia. Amidst their total world exports of 4.5%, Malaysia contributes 2.8% of this edible oil towards the GDP last year. He adds that they amidst clearing a large portion of their forest and declining to moderate noxious emissions, they have impoverished the deprived through the prevention of forest clearing for sustenance and living space.
Early this year, an act was passed by the European Union to phase palm oil out as renewable fuel for deforestation concerns by 2020.
Concerns have risen about India which is among the biggest importers of palm oil from Malaysia to restrict their imports for the reason a diplomatic row concerning comments from Mahathir about New Delhi’s latest action towards the dispute in the South Asian Kashmir region.