SMU School of Social Sciences Dean Professor James Tang was a panellist on the 6th season of Channel NewsAsia’s flagship discussion programme, Perspectives. On 24 April 2017, SMU hosted the fifth episode of Perspectives and the topic “The US President and Asia” featured a panel of four experts. When asked if US President Donald Trump knew where he was going or if things were unpredictable, the panel generally felt that it was too early to say if he has made a difference and needed more time to get his policies adopted. On the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Prof Tang said “If we go back to the basics of Trump’s promise of America first and jobs, there are reasons to believe that he will still be open to trade agreements with this part of the world that will be beneficial from the Trump’s administration point of view …. But obviously, rejecting the TPP was important to him as part of a campaign promise....He is also fortunate at this point, as far as trade is concerned when dealing with China, as China is keen to open up and move into a different phase of economic development. For example, cutting production capacity of steel and being more open in the financial industry…these are things that the Chinese government is planning to do ahead of the 19th congress and want a more stable relationship with the United States. So from this perspective, there is better potential for the United States to achieve want Trump wants.”