Singapore as a small country has to be prepared to adapt to a different world in the future, and continue to cooperate with other countries to ensure its trade and security, said ministers and academics in Singapore in response to United States President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech on Friday.

In his speech, President Trump said that all nations had a right to put their own interests first, and claimed that the US had “enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry”. He promised to give jobs back to Americans and said protection would lead to great prosperity and strength.

Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Maliki Osman said that open engagement with trading partners was especially important to Singapore.

… Ambassador-at-Large Ong Keng Yong, executive deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, expressed hope that the preoccupation of the new president with domestic concerns would be temporary, and that he would eventually turn his attention back to the global partnerships that the US has built on.