Washington’s delay of its so-called reciprocal tariffs is “little comfort” for Singapore, with “great uncertainty for businesses everywhere” already caused by the looming levies, the city state’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has warned.
Speaking at the S Rajaratnam Lecture on Wednesday, Wong said companies could no longer plan “comfortably” for long-term investments, with the knowledge that “the tariff rates could be changed at a moment’s notice”.
“Today, geopolitical competition has returned with a vengeance. The major powers no longer feel economically secure. Something has got to give. Where economic interdependence was once seen as a virtue, it is now seen as a vulnerability,” Wong said.
This new world order has prompted governments to localise production, build up on self-sufficiency and reassert greater control over critical supply chains and strategic industries and economic instruments, according to him.
“These trends are not new, but they have reached a new intensity with the latest US tariff moves.”
He added that despite American reassurance that Asia remained among foreign policy priorities, countries would still go ahead with plans to strengthen their own capabilities “just in case help does not arrive in time”.
