China’s Xi in the limelight at Pacific summit with Trump conspicuous by his absence
By Helen Regan, CNN
(CNN) — Leaders of Pacific countries and territories, including China’s Xi Jinping, are gathering in South Korea for a major summit Friday. But the leader of one global powerhouse is conspicuously absent: Donald Trump.
The US president flew out of South Korea Thursday, moments after his landmark meeting with his Chinese counterpart that appeared to de-escalate the protracted trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies.
With Trump choosing to skip the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation – which groups together countries accounting for more than half of global trade – Xi stepped into the limelight and will hold high-profile meetings, including with Japan’s new leader Sanae Takaichi and Canada’s Mark Carney.
Despite his absence, Trump’s protectionist trade policies and punishing global tariffs loom over the two-day event in the city of Gyeongju. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is standing in for Trump during the discussions.
In his opening remarks to the forum, Xi called for unity and cooperation between the grouping of 21 economies on both sides of the Pacific.
“The world is undergoing rapid changes unseen in a century,” Xi told the forum. “The more turbulent the times are, the more we must stand together in solidarity.”
“China’s door to openness will not close; it will only open wider,” Xi said.
Decisions made in Gyeongju are non-binding — and leaders have faced difficulty reaching consensus in the past including on thorny issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine. But a major focus for the forum this year is on strengthening supply chains and encouraging cooperation as economies worldwide reel from Trump’s tariff offensive.
“We are standing at a critical inflection point with a rapidly changing global economic order,” South Korean president and APEC chair Lee Jae Myung said in his address to the summit Friday. “As the free trade order undergoes dramatic changes, global economic uncertainty is deepening, and trade and investment are losing momentum.”
Lee said that “only cooperation and solidarity can surely lead us to a better future.”
Trump’s three-leg tour of Asia, which stopped in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, was generally regarded as a success for all parties, with Asian leaders putting on a masterclass in hospitality and flattery as they sought to get the president on side — and ease trade negotiations in the process.
Trump’s meeting with Xi ended in a trade agreement that called for the US to lower tariffs on China by 10%, bringing the effective rate on Chinese exports down to 47%; and for China to delay some export controls on rare earths and resume purchases of American soybeans.
In Japan, Trump and freshly appointed Prime Minister Takaichi embarked on a “new golden age” of relations and signed a critical minerals agreement. And a new trade deal reached with Lee would see South Korea invest billions of dollars in the US, including in shipbuilding, aerospace and technology, according to the White House.
On Friday, Xi met Japan’s Takaichi, a staunch conservative who has criticized China’s growing military presence in the region and called for cooperation with Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.
Xi told Takaichi that China was ready to “work with Japan for constructive, stable bilateral ties that meet requirements of the new era,” Chinese state Xinhua reported.
Takaichi faces a tough balancing act in her meeting with Xi. China remains Japan’s largest trading partner and Takaichi inherited a country facing mounting economic woes.
Xi also held meetings with Carney, who is involved in an escalating trade war with Trump, and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, according to Chinese state media.
In comments that echoed Xi and Lee’s addresses to APEC, Carney told the forum that the world was “facing another hinge moment in history.”
“Our world is undergoing one of the most profound shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he said. “That old world… of steady expansion of liberalized trade and investment… that world is gone.”
Canada, he said, was aiming to double non-US exports over the next decade in an effort to diversify away from the US.
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CNN’s Joyce Jiang contributed to this story
