Biden must get ‘creative’ to restore U.S. respect in Pacific region - ex-Fed official

CNBC reports that former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told that President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will have to get “creative” in its attempts to rebuild America’s relationship with trade partners in the Asia-Pacific region.

The comments from Fisher came days after China and 14 other countries in the region signed an agreement to form the world’s largest free-trade bloc. The U.S. was not included in the deal, which Fisher said was “not a good thing.” 

The U.S. had once been “viewed as the most important economy in the world. You couldn’t do anything without us. Well, they’ve done something without us in the Pacific region,” Fisher said, noting the participating countries represent almost one-third of the world’s population.

Fisher said Biden will have to work to overcome the approach to the Asia-Pacific region employed by President Donald Trump.

“It’s going to be very hard. I think the Biden administration is going to have to be very creative in coming up with a new way to figure out new relationships on other planes, not just tariff cuts, but show also that they are going to be rules based, which is what the Trump administration threw to the winds,” Fisher said.