Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump is set to embark on a major trip to Asia this week, with a significant meeting with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping scheduled to be held in Seoul on October 30. The highlight will be his talks with Xi in South Korea, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed would take place on October 30 on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Leavitt shared details of Trump’s Asia tour, which covers Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea for ASEAN and APEC summits, with trade talks, peace dialogue, and US-China tensions in focus.
Trump had previously threatened to scrap the meeting amid a flare-up in the trade war between Washington and Beijing, but he said on Wednesday he now hoped for a “deal on everything”. Trump will leave Washington and arrive on in Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit — a meeting Trump skipped several times in his first term. He is set to sign a trade deal with Malaysia — but more importantly to oversee the signing of a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia, as he continues his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.
“President Trump is keen to see the more positive results of the peace negotiations between Thailand and Cambodia,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. Trump’s next stop will be Tokyo on October 28 and he will meet conservative Sanae Takaichi, named this week as Japan’s first woman Prime Minister. Japan has escaped the worst of the tariffs Trump slapped on countries around the world to end what he calls unfair trade balances that are “ripping off the United States”.
