I never thought I'd live to see this surrender, says Mahathir as anger boils over trade deal signed by Anwar

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has joined the chorus of condemnation against the recently signed Malaysia-US trade deal, stating that the document is neither a "partnership" nor "reciprocal" as claimed by government leaders.

"It is a submission of our economic freedom which we have worked hard to protect and build.

"We agree to buy their airplanes, gas and machines, obey their digital rules, that they have the first bite of the cherry of our rare minerals, open our market on their terms and follow their conditions on who we can do or not do business with.

"All these for a tariff relief which is merely crumbs," said the former prime minister, who made nationalisation of the economy a keystone of his two decades in office during the rapid economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s.

On Oct 26, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and President Donald Trump signed the so-called reciprocal trade agreement, hailed as a pact to enhance reciprocity and secure supply chains.

Despite a major media campaign by the government promoting the agreement as a success in negotiations to seek lower tariffs imposed by Trump on Malaysian goods, social media erupted with anger as it emerged that the agreement binds Malaysia’s economic, foreign, and national security policies to the unilateral interests of the US, with critics and experts warning that it strips Malaysia of its sovereign regulatory power.

At the heart of public outrage over the deal is a provision that obliges Malaysia to become a direct participant in US economic conflicts.

It states that if Washington imposes sanctions or tariffs on any third country for national security reasons, Malaysia "shall adopt or maintain a measure with equivalent restrictive effect", effectively ending Malaysia’s long-held foreign policy of non-alignment and mirroring US sanctions against other nations.

The signing of the deal by Anwar has renewed accusations of the Pakatan Harapan chairman's leaning towards US and Western policies, a claim cited by Mahathir as far back as 1998 when he sacked Anwar from the government during the height of the Asian financial crisis.

Mahathir, who vehemently promoted nationalisation policies during his rule, including launching a "Buy British Last" campaign and engineering the "Dawn Raid" in 1981 to take over a British-owned plantation giant based in Malaysia, said the trade deal was a form of "modern-day imperialism" and "neo-colonialism" that the nation's founding elders had warned of during the early years of independence.

"So, stop cloaking it in trade and cooperation language or in diplomatic niceties – just admit that you have traded our independence because you lacked spine and keen to please the foreign powers.

"And it is the very power that supports and commits genocide on Palestinians," he said, referring to Washington's military aid to Israel.

Mahathir, who turned 100 in July, said he never thought he would live to witness the country's leaders "surrender our independence merely for a few minutes of grandstanding and a pat on the head by a foreign leader".

"But it happened, and here we are, subjected to the dictates of the US of A in almost all of our trade and economic ventures. We literally handed our sovereignty."