KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — President Donald Trump arrives in Southeast Asia on Sunday for his first visit to the continent since returning to power, a three-country tour through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea that is expected to end with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as tensions between the world’s two largest economies rise.
“The first message is Trump the peacemaker. The second is Trump the moneymaker,” said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And then, of course, with the China meeting, I think everyone expects that there probably won’t be a big trade deal, but there will be an effort to de-escalate or put a pause on the situation.”
Trading is expected to dominate the week. On Friday, aboard Air Force One, Trump said he would subsidize American farmers if he did not reach a deal with China, and that he planned to discuss the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine with Xi, saying he would like to see China “help us.”
The president also hinted that he was considering a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, although the White House said no meeting was planned.
“You know, they don’t have a lot of phone service,” Trump said, before urging reporters to “spread the word.”
In Kuala Lumpur, Trump is expected to meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim before attending a working dinner of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Malaysia, which chairs ASEAN this year, chose “inclusivity and sustainability” as the theme of the summit.
The White House said Trump would also participate in a signing ceremony for a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand, which he claims credit for helping resolve the deadly border conflict. During his first term, Trump only attended the annual ASEAN summit once.
Between the Kuala Lumpur summit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference in South Korea, Trump will make an official visit to Japan, his fourth, for talks with the new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, and an audience with Japanese Emperor Naruhito.
Takaichi, a conservative protégé of the late Shinzo Abe, pledged to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP by March, two years ahead of schedule, a goal likely to draw praise from Trump, who has pushed for his allies to spend more. She also raised the idea of revisiting the U.S.-Japan trade deal announced in July.
Trump and Abe formed a close personal relationship during his first term, before Abe’s assassination in 2022. Trump will also meet with business executives and visit U.S. troops during his stay in Japan, a country that hosts more U.S. military personnel than any other in the world.
In South Korea on Wednesday, Trump is expected to address APEC business leaders, hold a bilateral meeting with the president and attend a leaders’ dinner that evening.
Trade tops the agenda at every stage, with negotiators still ironing out details of deals with South Korea and Japan and taking steps toward deals with China and Malaysia. The US and Chinese delegations are meeting in Malaysia this weekend before Trump arrives in Kuala Lumpur.
“It’s not the US president who comes to Asia to meet the multilateral timetable; it’s the US president who comes to Asia and then changes the multilateral timetable according to his timetable,” Cha said, pointing out that Trump was skipping the US-ASEAN leaders’ meeting, the East Asia summit and formal APEC sessions. Despite this, Cha said, regional leaders are eager to engage.
“Everyone always wants to make a deal with the American president,” he said. “They all want tariff relief and they will try to reach an agreement to achieve that. »
At the heart of the trip is the planned meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea on Thursday, although Beijing has not yet confirmed the meeting. Top U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting in Malaysia on Saturday to find a solution after Trump threatened new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade limits starting Nov. 1 in response to expanded Chinese export controls on rare earth minerals and related technologies.
Trump said he planned to raise the fentanyl issue, blaming China for failing to curb the flow of chemical precursors, and a senior administration official said China’s purchases of Russian oil would also be on the table. Trump said he also planned to discuss Taiwan.
“We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us,” Trump said Friday, adding that he expects “a good meeting” even though he has intermittently threatened to end it because of trade frictions, including over soybean purchases.
Both leaders want the optical and tactical aspect of this meeting to go well, said a person familiar with the planning of the meeting.
Analysts have called for caution over what a leadership-level meeting can bring. “During Trump’s first term, high-level exchanges with China did not prevent him from taking a harder line,” said Sun Chenghao, a researcher at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. “The symbolic value of summit diplomacy should therefore not be overestimated. »
Earlier this week, a senior administration official pushed back against speculation that Trump might resume his 2019 meeting with North Korea’s Kim, when he made a surprise visit to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas in an effort to revive failed nuclear negotiations. Trump said before leaving Washington on Friday that he would “love” to meet Kim, but he was unsure if that would happen on this trip.
Kim says he will only negotiate if the United States recognizes North Korea as a nuclear power, and he has only strengthened his weapons programs since Trump’s first term.
“I think they are somewhat of a nuclear power,” Trump said as he began his trip to Asia on Friday, perhaps paving the way for a possible meeting. “They have a lot of nuclear weapons. I’m going to say it.”
