Asia-Pacific economies should keep free trade flowing despite looming challenges to be presented by the return of a protectionist Trump 2.0 administration in the US, according to the top economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

“We’re concerned—obviously, it’s probably going to be a challenge for countries in Asia to maintain exports to the US if Trump goes forward with his announced intention to raise tariffs considerably," Albert Park, chief economist at the Manila-based multilateral lender, told Manila Bulletin on the sidelines of a report launch event on Wednesday, Nov. 20.

The ADB is working on an updated economic outlook for the region, which takes the policy pronouncements of US President-elect Donald J. Trump into consideration, he said.

Adding to concerns about Trump’s trade protectionism stance—which is inflationary hence would jack up interest rates in the US, are his other economic plans like cutting taxes as well as running higher budget deficits, Park said.

“We just have to keep monitoring and see what actually happens,” the ADB’s chief economist said, citing that some of Trump’s policy statements during his first administration in 2017 to 2021 neither materialized nor hurt global trade.

“I don’t think there is much evidence that tariffs led to a lot of reshoring, etc., back to the US—but that was really his intent, right?” Park noted, referring to Trump’s consistent rhetoric of bringing US jobs back home, by boosting domestic manufacturing and stopping a barrage of imports.

In this light, “our message to countries and the region is to still stay open to trade with other countries, because that’s still very important for growth and development,” Park said.

He cited that while the Philippines historically has close and good relations with America, “it’s not clear if the US will treat different countries differently” in the economic front.

The US is the No. 1 export destination of Philippine-made goods, but China is the top source of products that the Philippines imports.

Bilateral trade with the US last year surpassed $22 billion, with the Philippines enjoying a surplus or more exports than imports.