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Visible barrier: Western countries in APEC are hindering the creation of free trade in the region
Work on the creation of a free trade zone within APEC is being hampered by a number of Western member states, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. First of all, these are Australia, Canada and New Zealand. At the same time, the main opponent of the removal of duties is the United States, which previously imposed tariffs on goods from China, experts say. Nevertheless, the creation of a free trade zone remains one of the strategic objectives of APEC, which the leaders of the countries can discuss at the summit in Shenzhen. Currently, ways to introduce paperless trading technologies and bring current standards closer together are being worked out, the department added. Why Western countries do not support the idea of free trade in the region and how realistic the idea is in general is in the Izvestia article.
Conflict of interests within APEC
The creation of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area (APFTA) is one of the main goals of the APEC association, which includes 21 countries, including Russia, the United States, China and a number of Southeast Asian countries. At the last 2025 summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, the countries took an important step — they consolidated in the final declaration their desire to develop a clear roadmap for launching this global market. However, this is being resisted by several member states that prefer to trade within closed blocs, Marat Berdyev, Ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Ministry and a senior official at APEC, told Izvestia.
— The pace of this work [on the creation of the APCC] is nevertheless being held back by individual Western APEC members, who, unable to cope with fair competition in market conditions, are not ready to remove real barriers to business. They are increasingly relying on closed blocs and outright protectionism, which only exacerbates their internal problems caused by sanctions and miscalculations in economic policy," the diplomat said.
He added that such states include those APEC members who have imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation. "First of all, we are talking about Australia, Canada, New Zealand," Berdyev said. Probably, the position of Canberra, Ottawa and Wellington is not an accident, but a common strategy. Their main task is to help the United States contain China's economic expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, experts say. Washington and its allies are increasingly using tariffs, export controls and industrial protectionism, which fundamentally contradicts the very logic of the open market, Alexander Korolev, Deputy Director of the Central Research Institute of Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia.
For Beijing, on the contrary, free trade is beneficial: it will allow tax-free sales of electric vehicles and microchips throughout the region, thereby strengthening its influence. For Washington, this would mean losing control over the whole of Asia. For the economic struggle with China, Donald Trump launched a tariff war. Since April 2025, Chinese goods have been imported into the United States with duties of up to 145%, effectively increasing its market price by two and a half times. American goods in China were sold at a premium of 125%.
A temporary truce is currently in effect between Beijing and Washington, so the size of duties has dropped sharply. According to the Peterson Institute for World Economics (PIIE), the average U.S. tax is now 35%, while China's surcharge on American goods has reached 31%. Ekaterina Zaklyazminskaya, head of the Center for World Politics and Strategic Analysis at the ICSA RAS, emphasizes that the White House considers duties to be its weapon of pressure and is not interested in eliminating them in principle.
According to her, Washington deliberately turns the APFTA project into endless conversations, preventing it from taking serious binding steps. It is more profitable for the United States to negotiate with countries separately, without allowing China to interfere in their trade affairs. The political barrier within APEC in the form of the Western bloc states, primarily Australia, New Zealand and Canada, confirms the tough stance of the United States. It is these countries that are part of several alliances with Washington at once. In particular, they are all present in the intelligence association Five Eyes.
Berdyev stressed that progress on the creation of a free trade zone would make a significant contribution to building an open and dynamic community in the Asia—Pacific region by 2040, which is another common goal at APEC.
— Moscow, of course, supports these guidelines, they are in many ways consonant with the well-known initiative of the President of Russia on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership (BEP). It implies combining the potentials of the EAEU, ASEAN and the SCO, interfacing regular systems and logistics corridors in the interests of creating a seamless economic space across the continent," the ambassador said.
Is it realistic to create a free trade zone in APEC
Nevertheless, since the signing of the Gyeongju Declaration, the unification countries have even managed to achieve some practical results. In particular, a lot of technical work has been carried out to simplify trade procedures, said Marat Berdyev.
"Specialized practical tools are being developed, including in terms of modernizing customs procedures and introducing paperless trade technologies, bringing existing standards and algorithms closer together," he said.
Instead of paper documents, electronic data exchange, a single window system and pre-clearance of goods before their arrival at the border are being implemented. This eliminates hidden administrative barriers, which often slow down business more than duties, explains Alexander Korolev.
According to Ekaterina Zaklyazminskaya, this tool is already working in practice.: Starting in the autumn of 2026, freight trains will be issued without paper documents at the Russian-Chinese railway crossing of Grodekovo – Suifenhe. The expansion of the mechanism to other trading points will be one of the most important topics at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18-19, the expert believes. The countries will discuss the mutual recognition of digital invoices, receipts and phytosanitary certificates. The agenda will also include simplification of customs regulations and the development of online commerce.
At the same time, experts are sure that we should not expect the signing of a full-scale APCTA agreement at the summit. Firstly, political barriers from the United States are taking their toll. Washington may be ready to maintain a dialogue on the digitalization of customs procedures, but it is holding back the actual abolition of tariffs in an effort to protect its market from competition with China. Secondly, the FTA involves the unification of economies that already participate in different trade regimes and often adhere to incompatible approaches. It will be difficult to reach a single consensus.
Finally, the APEC structure itself has an impact, which has no supranational institutions and makes decisions only after the voluntary consent of all states. This is their serious difference from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), where the free trade zone assumes that all participating countries negotiate with the outside world as a whole, and their customs taxes are the same.
Perhaps there will be some progress following the planned meeting of the leaders of Russia, China and the United States. Although the agenda of the dialogue between the heads of world powers is likely to be based around issues of the most global agenda. The day before, Donald Trump said he could discuss denuclearization with his colleagues. At the same time, Vladimir Putin is scheduled to speak at the Business Council (it will be held on November 17-18), which is more in line with the APCST theme.
The APCTA topic is likely to occupy one of the central places at the summit in Shenzhen, but its creation is unlikely in the near future. And the main barrier here is not economic, but political: the major powers are not yet ready, at least not yet, to agree on common trade rules in the face of increasing geo-economic competition and prolonged conflicts, including the Ukrainian crisis.
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