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Donald Trump will leave the White House for Asia on Friday night, his first visit to the continent this term. He will make stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
The US president is expected to work on investment deals and peace efforts before meeting directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to calm the trade war.
As he left the White House, President Trump told reporters, “I have a lot of things I want to talk about with President Xi, and President Xi has a lot of things he wants to talk with us about.” “I think we will have a good encounter.”
Trump’s first stop is a regional summit in Kuala Lumpur. He attended the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit only once during his first term, but this year’s appearance comes as Malaysia and the United States grapple with dealing with skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia.
He will also hold talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Sunday, followed by a joint signing ceremony with the prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia.
President Trump earlier this year threatened to put the trade deal on hold unless the two sides stopped fighting, and his administration has since worked with Malaysia to extend the ceasefire.
The president acknowledged Mr. Ibrahim’s efforts to resolve the conflict.
“I told a very good Malaysian leader that I thought I owed him a trip,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The US leader could also hold important talks on Sunday with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who wants the US to cut 40% tariffs on imports from Brazil. The U.S. government justified the tariffs by citing Brazil’s criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of President Donald Trump.
Beyond trade, Lula on Friday also criticized the U.S. campaign of military strikes off the coast of South America in the name of fighting drug trafficking. He said he planned to raise his concerns with President Trump at a meeting in Malaysia on Sunday. The White House has not yet officially confirmed that the talks will take place.
Following Malaysia, Trump also stopped in Japan and South Korea.
From there, Trump will head to Japan and South Korea, where he is expected to advance negotiations on at least $900 billion (776 billion euros) in investments in U.S. factories and other projects pledged by those countries in return for Trump’s planned reduction in tariffs from 25% to 15%.
The visit to Tokyo comes one week after Sanae Takaichi was elected Japan’s first female prime minister. President Trump is scheduled to meet with Takaichi, a disciple of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump was close to Abe, who was assassinated after leaving office.
President Trump said the relationship between Takaichi and Prime Minister Abe was a “good sign” and that he was “looking forward to meeting her.”
During his visit, Trump will be entertained by Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and meet with U.S. troops stationed in Japan, according to a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the planned trip.
In South Korea, President Trump is expected to hold a long-awaited meeting with China’s President Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.
The APEC summit is scheduled to be held in Gyeongju, but the meeting between President Trump and President Xi is expected to take place in Busan, U.S. officials said.
The meeting comes after months of instability in the trade war between China and the United States that has rocked the global economy.
President Trump was furious earlier this month when the Chinese government imposed new export restrictions on rare earth metals used in technology and threatened to raise retaliatory tariffs to extremely high levels. He says he wants China to buy U.S. soybeans. But earlier this week, Trump sounded optimistic, predicting a “great deal” with Xi.
Trump also said he might ask Xi about freeing Democratic newspaper founder Jimmy Lai, saying: “I’ll put that on my list.”
The only meeting that could upend the Xi summit would be an impromptu reunion with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Speculation has been mounting since South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told lawmakers this month that President Trump could meet again with Kim in the demilitarized zone, as he did in 2019.
But U.S. officials say no such talks are scheduled during the president’s current trip.
President Trump has indicated that it will be difficult to contact the North Korean leader.
“They have a lot of nuclear weapons, but they don’t have a lot of phone service,” he said.