World at “pivot point,” needs to embrace openness free trade, PM says
GUANGZHOU, China — The world is at a “pivot point” and will fail unless countries embrace free trade and elevate their citizens who have been left behind by globalization, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Wednesday.
Trudeau delivered that dire, anti-protectionist message to a high-powered business audience at a major international conference in this bustling southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Trudeau came to the Fortune Global Forum, a Davos-style gathering of the world’s business elite, to sell Canada as good place for foreign investment, but he went off script and delivered a stern warning about the dangers of allowing protectionism and inequality to flourish.
“We are at a pivot point in the world right now, where we decide whether we work together in an open and confident way and succeed or whether we all falter separately and isolated,” he said.