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27-10-2025
KUALA LUMPUR: US President Donald Trump is kicking off his first trip to the Asia Pacific since his re-election by attending the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
America tariffs and access to rare earth minerals will be high on the agenda of Sunday’s gathering of Southeast Asian nations, while Trump is also set to preside over the signing of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia.
Trump’s six-day trip will also see him visit Japan and South Korea, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping face-to-face for the first time since he reentered the White House.
ASEAN leaders will try to court Trump for a deal
Nearly 3,000 media personnel have descended on Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN summit, but the most important meetings will be happening behind closed doors.
Experts say ASEAN’s leaders will be vying for a chance to meet with Trump or a member of his inner circle to talk about trade, tariffs, and other business dealings.
Last week, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was caught on a hot mic speaking to Trump and asking for a meeting with his son, Eric Trump.
ASEAN’s export-driven economy has been a major target of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs.
The White House initially slapped tariffs of upwards of 40 percent on many members of the bloc. Most countries were able to negotiate the rates down to between 10 and 20 percent, although higher tariffs remain on Myanmar and Laos.
Another problem on the horizon is a 40 percent tariff for goods deemed to be “transshipments.”
The tariff targets goods, primarily from China, that have been shipped through Southeast Asia to deliberately avoid other pre-existing tariffs.
The problem, experts say, is that ASEAN has a complex manufacturing supply chain with China.
Goods can cross borders many times before they are finished, which makes a “transshipment” hard to define.
America, China and others court ASEAN amid global turbulence
ASEAN now has 11 members, and it represents a population of well over 600 million. And because of all the turbulence, the global issues that have been happening this year, a lot of people have been reaching out to this part of the world.
We’ve seen earlier this year, the Gulf States sending delegations to these meetings. We’ve also seen meetings with the Europeans, and also, of course, US delegations arriving here for talks.
We have a very senior delegation from China. Chinese Premier Li Qiang is also here.
So there is an awful lot of competition with countries trying to win the favors of this large block of nations and we’re expecting that there will be talks between Chinese and US officials, talks that will continue into next week, when all of this moves to South Korea, when we have the meeting of APEC. That’s the organization representing the economies and countries around the Pacific Rim, which again will be attended by Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The two leaders are anticipated to be having a meeting, when they might be talking about a possible trade deal between the world’s two biggest economies.
Security tight in Kuala Lumpur
The city has deployed thousands of police officers and shut down roads and multiple train stations in preparation for today’s events. Drones and helicopters can be seen regularly buzzing overhead.
Businesses are open, but almost everyone is walking around on foot, except for foreign dignitaries and security forces. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
