US "Making Efforts to Produce a Strong Joint Declaration at the APEC Meeting"

The U.S. government stated that it is working to produce a strong joint declaration through consensus among member countries at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, which opened in San Francisco, USA.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) opened on the 11th (local time) in San Francisco, USA. 2[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

Matt Murray, Senior APEC Officer at the U.S. Department of State, made this remark during a press briefing held on the 13th (local time) ahead of President Joe Biden's visit to San Francisco.

The APEC meeting opened on the 11th, and the summit meeting, the core event of this gathering attended by most of the 21 member country leaders, will be held from the 15th to the 17th.

Murray said, "There has been much friction over the joint declaration in the past two years due to the Russia-Ukraine war," but emphasized, "However, we were able to announce a leaders' declaration agreed upon at last year's APEC summit held in Thailand."

At last year's APEC summit held amid the war between Russia and Ukraine, there was a strong sentiment that adopting a joint declaration would be difficult. Nevertheless, the majority of member countries reached a consensus and issued a joint declaration strongly criticizing the war in Ukraine for causing immense human suffering and further worsening the vulnerabilities of the global economy.

Murray stated, "This year, we will also strive to adopt a joint declaration (as we did last year)," adding, "We are working very hard with all like-minded APEC partners to achieve such an outcome."

However, there are also forecasts that it will be difficult to adopt a joint declaration this year due to conflicting interests among member countries. This meeting is taking place amid two ongoing wars: the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.

Matt Goodman, a trade expert who was a White House coordinator at the 2011 APEC summit in Hawaii, said, "Considering that both Russia and China are members of APEC, it is more difficult than ever to produce concrete results," but predicted, "However, small groups of like-minded countries may issue their own statements."