Aides for both presidents have discussed a possible autumn meeting in Asia around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on Oct 30 – Nov 1, Reuters previously reported.
The annual ASEAN summit would mark Trump’s first trip to Southeast Asia since his 2019 meeting with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. He is also expected to attend the APEC summit.
It is rare for Chinese presidents to attend ASEAN summits, with Xi only having joined a 2021 special summit virtually since he gained power in 2012. Attendance by U.S. presidents is also uncommon – Trump attended in 2017, while President Joe Biden joined Xi remotely in 2021. Biden also attended the summit in person in Cambodia the following year.
Anwar said this year’s annual summit would aim to deliver “ASEAN’s largest and most high-profile gathering of world leaders to date”, with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa also expected to attend.
Washington and Beijing last week extended a tariff truce for another 90 days, staving off triple-digit duties on each other’s goods while negotiations continue to address the trade imbalance, market access and rare earths among other issues.
Trump’s global tariffs offensive has shaken Southeast Asia, a region heavily reliant on exports and manufacturing and in many areas boosted by supply chain shifts from China.
Washington announced tariffs of about 19 per cent across major Southeast Asian economies’ exports earlier this month, far lower than previously threatened, after the White House had explicitly warned regional countries against so-called transshipment of Chinese goods to the U.S.
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