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The principle I have chosen is ‘We aim to be a friend to all but an enemy of none’. This refers to
refraining from taking sides with countries when countries are at a disagreement, and being
neutral when making decisions based on facts and logic, rather than opinions and personal
feelings.

This case study is about the US participating in Vaccine nationalism. Vaccine nationalism is
when wealthy countries deal and invest in pharmaceutical manufacturers in developing a
vaccine. This secures the country a large quantity of vaccine doses for the citizens before it is
available to the public (DE,2020), leaving lower income countries with little accessibility to the
vaccine. To prevent this WHO has come up with COVAX, an initiative to band resources
globally to develop a vaccine and fund 2 billion accessible doses of vaccine to all. The US
however, has decided to refrain from COVAX and participate in Vaccine nationalism as he
criticises it for being “China-centric” (Rauhala & Abutaleb, 2020). By doing so, the country is not
following the principle. The US government is taking a gamble and making themselves an
unreliable partner and selfish. If the worst scenario plays out, the US will be in shortage and in
desperate need of vaccines as it is currently the country with the highest cases and highest
deaths (Worldometer, 2020). If the best scenario for the US pans out and manage to produce a
vaccine, there would still be a negative impact. It is estimated that Covid-19 could kill as many
as 40 million people globally, reducing global economic output by $12.5 trillion by the end of
2021, meaning the US economy will not be able to bounce back (Glosserman, 2020). Hoarding
the vaccine will still make a portion of Americans in the tourism and trade industry, vulnerable to
imported cases (Abutaleb & Rauhala). This emphasises the point that no country can stand
alone despite being a world superpower.

One lesson that Singapore can learn is that disagreements and pride should not come between
the National interest of a country. There must be a balance and must avoid taking sides as
diplomacy is not about having good relations at all cost, but it is about promoting friendly
relations to protect and advance national interests (Balakrishnan, 2017).By tackling a worldwide
issue as a single country, it is a high risk high reward situation that should not be meddled with,
considering citizens are at stake. When it comes to national interests, decisions with the
advantage should always be considered first. Despite having different viewpoints of handling the
Covid-19 Situation, Singapore maintains good and diplomatic relations with the US. For
example, the US is Singapore’s largest foreign direct investor, both countries belong to a same
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international organisations, and we maintain a Singapore embassy in the US (US Department of

State, 2020).
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References

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Balakrishnan, V. (2017, July 17). Full speech: Five core principles of Singapore's foreign policy.
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Berkley, S. (2020). COVAX explained. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from

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