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regional relationship, the ASEM is expected to play a crucial role in the global

economy. As a “building block” in the positive-sum game of inter-regional
cooperation, economic cooperation between Asia and Europe is expected to

spill over other regionalisms (Hänggi, 1999). More importantly, the inter-
regional economic cooperation between Asia and Europe could contribute to

the global economy by acting as a feasible inter-regional alignment against the

hegemonic unilateralism (Dent, 2004). Under the Donald Trump
administration, there is an increasing awareness that excesses of the US

hegemonic unilateralism poses a potential threat to global prosperity. In

January 2017, President Donald Trump intentionally weakened the inter-
regional linkage between Asia and North America by signing the Presidential

Memorandum to withdraw officially from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Before the US withdrawal, the TPP was considered the “biggest” trade deal in

history which contained an aspiring plan to create a rule-based inter-
regionalism, strengthening economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

As a result of this situation, the role of ASEM in the triadic global economy is

proving to be of utmost importance.

References

 ASEAN (2017a). ASEAN-European Union Dialogue Relations.
Retrieved from http://asean.org/asean/external-relations/european-
union/ [Accessed on 25 October 2017]
 ASEAN (2017b). ASEAN-EU Plan of Action (2018-2022). Retrieved
from http://asean.org/asean-eu-plan-action-2018-2022/ [Accessed on
25 October 2017]
 ASEAN (2017c). ASEAN Economic Community. Retrieved from
 http://asean.org/asean-economic-community/ [Accessed on 25 October
2017]
 Dent, C.M. (2004). The Asia-Europe Meeting and inter-regionalism:
Toward a theory of multilateral utility. Asian Survey, 44:213–236

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