Faced with multiple challenges and uncertainties, the rest of the world is sufficiently mature, will continue to move forward and will not "sit around and wait" for the US to figure out what it wants to do, Warwick Powell, an adjunct professor at the Queensland University of Technology and advisor to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, told CGTN.

Powell added that the world today is quite capable of addressing the issues as it sees appropriate in term of technologies, human resource know-hows and financial wherewithal. Trading countries will develop workarounds and new institutions, and build new multilateral platforms at a regional level. This will facilitate an expansion of regional trade and capital flows to enable economic development to proceed.