\n<\/p>\n
ADDIS ABABA<\/span> – Countries should come together and find ways forward on their own, even if the United States is not involved in discussions or chooses not to be, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said at the end of his trip to Africa, where he attended the Group of 20 (G-20) summit marked by the absence of US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n But Singapore\u2019s preference is still for America to be actively engaged in these conversations to shape the direction of global affairs, he said, adding that the US can join in \u201cat any time\u201d when it is ready.<\/p>\n Although the world is increasingly multi-polar, not all poles are the same, said PM Wong, who is also Finance Minister.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica is, for now, still the biggest (pole), and obviously American leadership is vital in providing that global framework for the world,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He was speaking to Singapore journalists in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of an official visit that had followed his trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, for the G-20 summit.<\/p>\n Mr Trump had <\/p>\n boycotted the summit<\/p>\n <\/a> over widely discredited claims that South Africa is persecuting its Afrikaner white minority, and the historic summit held in Africa for the first time was at times overshadowed by his absence. The US is slated to chair the G-20 in 2026.<\/p>\n Despite these tensions in the backdrop, the G-20 summit has been a \u201ctremendous success\u201d, said PM Wong, adding that such platforms play a key role in getting countries to come together and engage.<\/p>\n He said he was glad that despite differences, all the countries that were present came together to put out a declaration in Johannesburg. There was some consensus on the way forward, and that makes for a \u201cvery fruitful outcome\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n The leaders of the grouping had adopted the summit declaration at the start of the meetings on Nov 22, with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa saying then that there was \u201coverwhelming consensus and agreement\u201d to do so.<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s G-20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meets, PM Wong had appealed to world leaders to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO).<\/p>\n Asked about this, he said that where trade is concerned, the other parallel effort is to work through plurilateral and minilateral initiatives, said PM Wong.<\/p>\n Plurilateral and minilateral refer to smaller groupings of countries, as opposed to traditional multilateral initiatives that are large-scale.<\/p>\n These efforts come amid general recognition among world leaders at the meet that the global economic and financial architecture needs to be refreshed \u2013 in particular the WTO, which was optimised around trade efficiency and not the strategic realities of the current times, said PM Wong. <\/p>\n He acknowledged that refreshing the WTO, in itself a complex task, will be even more difficult without the US involved.<\/p>\n But the other countries should not give up and should persist through other channels, he said.<\/p>\n He cited examples such as the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership, or FIT-P, which Singapore started with other like-minded countries to bring small and medium-sized economies together to support fair and open trade, as well as regional groupings like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union.<\/p>\n These parallel efforts are not just about encouraging trade flows, but are ways in which like-minded countries can work out how new rules and frameworks can be developed among themselves, said PM Wong.<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, if they are successful, they can provide a basis for other countries to join and be part of these platforms, and for us to extend the rules across the board as part of WTO precepts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n