SINGAPORE - Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Hsien-loong has said the best framework for the global economy at present is "the world, temporarily minus one," referring to the United States.

"America has decided that they want to take a more narrow, bilateral, transactional view of international trade. Other countries still have a framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO)," Lee said during the 69th Economic Society of Singapore Annual Dinner recently.

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"The framework mostly remains," he said, adding that the United States wishes the rules were different and is trying to change them. While the United States still needs to engage in global trade, he noted that it may or may not return to the multilateral system.

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Other countries can make friends with like-minded partners within a region, like ASEAN, within a broader area, like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or with complementary economies that span a wider range, like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Lee said.

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Like-minded partners, he added, can also work together to make the WTO function without being paralyzed by consensus gridlock.

"When you have one of the biggest economies in the world taking a radically different approach, and really not just withdrawing from, but expressing its disapproval of the WTO system, that will have repercussions, and we will have to see how the eventual situation shapes up," said Lee.