For Asian businesspeople who were expecting greater access to the US market, perhaps the best advice for the time being may be to heed the suggestion of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin for days of grief: "Merry days will come, believe."

On Monday, US President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which was submitted for US congressional approval last year by the Barack Obama administration.

US officials once touted the TPP as the best and largest multilateral trade deal ever, even although it was to a great extent a political device aimed at curtailing China's influence in the Asia-Pacific.