IT was unexpected. It was a snub.

The damage had been done but after a quick powwow among Trans-Pacific Partnership countries in Danang, the free trade deal among 11 countries is back on track.

Hardly 24 hours before the announcement that the deal had been salvaged, Canada’s Justin Trudeau threw it into chaos.

He left 10 other TPP leaders surprised, shocked and angry.

These leaders included Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – whose country has been taking the lead to revive the deal after the United States under President Donald Trump withdrew.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was also at the venue when Abe announced that the leaders’ meeting could not go on because Trudeau was not attending.

It prompted Najib to remark to Malaysian officials present that the meeting was theDrost, Gerrit J.

Captain Gerrit J Drost has the peculiar distinction that he left the Netherlands at the start of World war II on the last ship out (Delftdyk) as chief officer and brought as the captain the first HAL ship back in dutch waters after the end of WWII