A summit of world leaders has been urged to defend free trade from rising protectionism after Donald Trump’s election victory stoked fears that years of tearing down barriers to global commerce could be reversed. How Donald Trump upended Republican orthodoxy on free trade Read moreAs a summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group got under way, host Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, president of Peru, urged the region’s leaders to robustly defend free trade, while the US sought to reassure worried allies. “In the US and Britain, protectionist tendencies are taking over,” Kuczynski told Apec leaders. The center-right economist urged his fellow leaders to deliver an “unequivocal message” in support of free trade. Th Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is holding a strong hand as he meets Obama and other Apec leaders this week.

Source: The Guardian November 19, 2016 02:05 UTC