Albanese dines with Trump and other leaders as Xi meeting awaits
Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that he expects to reduce the 20 percent tariffs he imposed earlier this year as punishment against China for their role in smuggling fentanyl in exchange for greater cooperation with law enforcement.
Trump was the guest of honor at the dinner, but it was not immediately clear on what basis they received the invitation, other than that the other six countries – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore – were in town for the 21-member meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Canada’s Mark Carney walked into the dinner, ignoring reporters’ questions about whether he had a message for the U.S. president, who vowed to raise tariffs on Canada this week in anger over an anti-tariff TV ad airing in Ontario. The two sat directly across from each other, even though Trump had made it clear he had no time for Canada in his 6-day assault on Asia.
“I don’t want to meet with him,” he said of Carney on Monday.
Albanese joked that Carney and Singaporean leader Lawrence Wong should “share the car” to the event, having just come off the summit treadmill at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in Malaysia the day before.
Earlier in the day, Lee lavished Trump with royal treatment as Air Force One touched down on the tarmac to the sound of a military band playing “YMCA,” the uplifting song from the U.S. rally. Later, Lee presented Trump with a replica gold crown from the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla and awarded him the Mugunghwa Grand Order, Korea’s highest honour.
Albanese will have his own bilateral meeting with Chairman Lee tomorrow, guaranteed to be a much more low-key meeting, and will visit the headquarters of global steelmaker Pohang.
Iron and Steel Corp. before the APEC summit begins in earnest on Friday.
But the conference, which came at the end of the busy summit season, was overshadowed by the blockbuster meeting that took place on the sidelines.
The stage is set for Trump and Xi to sign a deal expected to roll back some of the last trade restrictions the countries have imposed on each other after negotiators from both sides agreed to a consensus framework earlier in the week.
As part of the expected deal, the US expects Beijing to delay lifting new curbs on rare earth exports for a year, while Trump will back down on his threat to impose an extra 100 tariffs on Chinese goods on November 1.
In a sign of an imminent breakthrough on the eve of the meeting, China made its first purchase of U.S. soybeans for the season after boycotting them for months.
China only confirmed the meeting between Xi and Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
“We stand ready to make joint efforts with the United States to support the positive outcomes of this meeting and provide new guidance and impetus for the steady development of China-US relations,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
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