APEC summit to close in South Korea after Trump, Xi agreed on trade truce

GYEONGJU, South Korea -- Leaders of 21 Asian and Pacific Rim nations are to set to wrap up their annual economic forum on Saturday after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on a temporary truce on their trade war, generating relief around the world.

This year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju was heavily overshadowed by Thursday’s Trump-Xi meeting that ended with the two leaders dialing back their earlier trade steps and de-escalating their trade tensions.

The high-stakes meeting was arranged on the sidelines of APEC. Trump, known for his dismissal of multilateralism, quickly left South Korea after reaching deals with Xi, allowing the Chinese president to steal the limelight at the summit.

During the APEC summit’s opening session Friday, Xi said China would support global free trade and supply chain stability in an apparent effort to position his country as an alternative to Trump’s protectionist policies. In written remarks sent to a CEO summit held in conjunction with APEC, Xi said that “Investing in China is investing in the future.”

Xi met his Japanese, Canadian and Thai counterparts bilaterally on the sidelines of APEC on Friday. He’s to meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday for talks that Seoul officials said would touch on efforts to achieve denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

That agenda at the Xi-Lee meeting angered North Korea, a non-APEC member. North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong Ho on Saturday slammed South Korea for talking about “its daydream” of realizing North Korea’s denuclearization, saying North Korea will show how such a push is "a pipedream" that can never be realized. Park's statement was seen as applying pressure on both South Korea and China ahead of their bilateral summit.

Trump earlier repeatedly expressed his desire to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong U n during his visit to South Korea, but North Korea hasn't responded. Trump and Kim met three times in 2018-19, but their nuclear diplomacy eventually collapsed. North Korea has since vowed not to place its advancing nuclear program on a negotiating table, but experts say the North would aim for winning extensive sanctions relief in return for a partial surrender of its advancing nuclear program.

Friday's APEC meeting focused on ways to boost trade and investment, and Saturday's meeting is expected to center on artificial intelligence, demographic challenges and new growth strategies.

As the host nation, South Korea has been prodding members to adopt a joint declaration at the end of APEC's second and final day session on Saturday. In a 2018 APEC summit in Papua New Guinea, members failed to come up with a joint declaration due to U.S.-China discord over trade.

South Korean officials earlier said that issuing a joint statement strongly endorsing free trade would be unlikely because of differing positions among APEC members

Established in 1989, APEC champions free and open trade and investment to accelerate regional economic integration. But the APEC region now faces challenges like strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China, supply chain disruptions, aging populations and the impact of AI on jobs.

The U.S. strategy has been shifted to economic competitions with China rather than cooperation, with Trump’s tariff hikes and “America first” agenda shaking markets and threatening decades of globalization and multinationalism.