Anwar Convenes Urgent Cabinet Meeting To Tackle Us Tariff Fallout

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(MM) – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his Cabinet members will convene a special meeting this evening, hastily called as Putrajaya seeks to contain the potential fallout from the latest round of reciprocal tariffs announced by Washington yesterday.
Anwar said an announcement on measures is expected to follow today’s meeting, which will be chaired by the technical committee overseeing trade with the United States.
“God willing we will announce [our response] after the meeting,” he told reporters after performing Friday prayers here.
The meeting will also include Bank Negara Malaysia governor Datuk Seri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, and the Policy Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican.
Malaysia, which has a trade surplus with the US, was slapped with a 24 per cent export tariff in a move Trump said is aimed at punishing countries that have “ripped them off” and reducing the American trade deficit.
Malaysia was one of 180 nations in the list that have been hit with reciprocal duties, which Trump displayed on so-called Liberation Day, a play on words supposedly to symbolise the day American businesses are unshackled from unfair trade practices.
All Southeast Asian countries were also in that list, but with varying rates of tariffs. Vietnam the highest at 46 per cent, while long time US ally Singapore was slapped with a baseline 10 per cent rate.
The latest round of Tariffs have sent the stock market tumbling and fuelled concerns of a full-blown trade war. Anwar said Malaysia is not planning to retaliate, however, but stressed on measures to protect Malaysian trade interests.
“We will study it carefully [how we respond] but the most important thing is we do not retaliate. The most important thing is to protect our economic interests,” he said.
The US was Malaysia’s third-largest export market in 2024, with total exports valued at over RM190 billion, according to data from the United States Office of Trade Representative.
The bulk of exports were semiconductors, which are among goods exempted from the latest round of tariffs.
Source : MalayMail
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