U.S. offers all-pain, no-gain economic deal to Southeast Asian leaders: report

NEW YORK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Joe Biden administration used last week's summit with Southeast Asian leaders to talk up his forthcoming Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which tries to make up for Washington's new unwillingness to negotiate the kind of market-opening trade deals Asian leaders like, reported Foreign Policy (FP) on Wednesday.

First mooted last year, the idea was dreamed up by U.S. officials to fill the gaping hole left in Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy when then U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in 2017, said the report authored by James Crabtree, an FP columnist.