SINGAPORE: It will be some time yet before countries can know for certain the final shape of the United States’ tariff regime against virtually all its trading partners.

This is as, aside from the revisions and legal challenges to the trade barriers that have been announced, it is clear that the US is looking to conduct multiple rounds of bilateral negotiations with its trading partners, which will take time, said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Saturday (June 7).

His meetings with US senators and members of Congress also showed there was bipartisan recognition between the Republicans and Democrats that trade, investment, intellectual property protection, reliability and supply chain security remain vital issues to the Americans, he added.

In a Zoom call with the Singapore media to wrap up his five-day visit to Washington, Dr Balakrishnan said both sides reaffirmed the strong and stable bilateral relationship during his visit.

“The relationship with the United States is a vital, critical one for Singapore – it spans the entire gamut... the economy, defence, security, and we’re also pursuing emerging opportunities in areas like cyber security and energy,” he said.

“So, it is a relationship which needs to be tended to, and attended to carefully.”

In his meetings with senior US administration officials and members of Congress, Dr Balakrishnan conveyed Singapore’s appreciation for the bipartisan support that enabled bilateral cooperation to flourish across a wide range of areas.

Both sides also expressed commitment to continued constructive engagement and to advance cooperation in both traditional areas such as defence, as well as new and emerging areas such as critical technologies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Dr Balakrishnan told reporters he had fairly extensive discussions on tariffs during his visit, including their impact on open economies like Singapore, and that his US counterparts understood his perspective.

At his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on June 4, Dr Balakrishnan said he raised the impact of the US tariffs, and came away assured that the measures were not directed at Singapore.

“Nevertheless, I expressed our concern with the secondary impact, because any impact on global trade, any friction in the system, will have an impact on an open economy like ours, where our trading volume is three times our GDP,” he said. “So that point needed to be made.”

Manufacturing activity in Singapore shrank for the second consecutive month in May on the back of global trade uncertainty, according to purchasing managers’ index figures released on June 2.

Dr Balakrishnan said he “made the point repeatedly” to his US counterparts that America has a trade surplus against Singapore, and that the city-state should not be subjected even to the baseline 10 per cent tariff.

That said, Singapore is more concerned with sectoral tariffs, and will be looking at them “very carefully” so as to minimise these as much as possible, he said.

The majority of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs announced on April 2 have been paused for 90 days, but on June 4, Trump signed an order to double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25 per cent to 50 per cent.

In May, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said there were early indications that Washington was open to discussing how the Republic could ensure a continued supply of semiconductors to the US, and that talks were on for preferential or even zero US tariffs on Singapore’s pharmaceutical exports.

Dr Balakrishnan said: “We’re still in the early stages of our discussions and negotiations, so let’s watch this space.”

Responding to a question from the media on whether he faced any challenges engaging US officials on his visit, he said there were no hurdles to interactions with the Americans.

“They were very welcoming, courteous. We got along in our own usual direct and constructive manner, so I have no anxiety on that front,” he said.

The anxiety is that the world order that had prevailed for 80 years and which helped Singapore to succeed – premised on free trade and the free flow of investments – is clearly changing, and this period of transition is “the time of greatest danger”, he added.

This is a time when the Republic needs to be alert and prompt in responding to change, said Dr Balakrishnan.

“And it is also important to interact frequently, candidly, openly and constructively with our interlocutors, and especially with a superpower which is of great strategic importance to us,” he added.

“So what’s important is to recognise that situation has changed, to be able to have complete, comprehensive and candid conversations, and then for us to take the appropriate precautionary measures or to make the necessary adjustments domestically as well.”

Prior to being in Washington, Dr Balakrishnan was in London, where he met the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Lammy, with whom he discussed economic ties, geostrategic issues and potential areas of cooperation. - The Straits Times/ANN