Building Resilient Partnerships

Building Resilient Partnerships: The Trump regime’s haphazard tariff changes are not all doom and gloom, as other countries are doubling down on multilateralism as a strategic counter to this transactional unilateralism. While we’re seeing Japan, China, and South Korea seek to enhance regional cooperation, Australia is leading its own multilateral trade strategy, assuming the Chair of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in January, and actively participating in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (the world’s largest free trade agreement by GDP) with 15 Indo-Pacific countries including China. These agreements create alternatives to US-dominated trade arrangements, and signal a fundamental shift where middle powers are building strategic partnerships to hedge against American unpredictability, creating new coalitions that prioritise rules-based cooperation over bilateral deal-making. I starkly recall the time when I was CEO of a wealth management business and the political and commercial winds in our largest “trading partner” changed dramatically.  Having built a series of strong relationships with other similar organisations before this occurred helped us quickly replace lost revenues.

How is your organisation building resilient partnerships that can withstand shifts in major stakeholder relationships?

Further reading: Japan, China and South Korea discuss trilateral cooperation – AP News, Australia assumes CPTPP Chair 2025

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