Chinese President Xi Jinping will take center stage at the annual summit of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea on Friday, as he is expected to hold talks with his Canadian, Japanese and Thai counterparts after securing a fragile trade truce with US President Donald Trump.
That agreement — struck just before Trump left South Korea, skipping the main two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit — will halt further curbs on China’s exports of rare earths that threatened to jam up global supply chains.
Supporting supply chains is a significant focus of this year’s APEC summit, hosted in the historic South Korean city of Gyeongju. The 21-member economic club aims to encourage cooperation and reduce trade and investment barriers, though decisions made at meetings are nonbinding and finding a consensus has been increasingly difficult.
“As the free trade order undergoes dramatic changes, global economic uncertainty is deepening and trade and investment are losing momentum,” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told the gathered leaders at the opening session on Friday.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood in for the absent Trump.
“Changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world,” Xi told the assembled leaders in a speech calling for protection of the multilateral trading system and deeper economic cooperation.
“The rougher the seas, the more we must pull together,” Xi said.
South Korean president strikes cautious tone
As he chaired the summit, Lee said the Asia-Pacific region was at a critical point in the rapidly changing global economic order.
“It is clear we cannot always be on the same side, but we must work together to achieve common prosperity,” Lee said. He added that cooperation among APEC members is a “clear solution” to the current economic challenges.
The APEC region accounts for 50% of global trade and 61% of gross domestic product.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
