Trump speaks at summit in South Korea ahead of meeting with China’s Xi Jinping

Washington — President Trump arrived Wednesday at Gyeongju, South Korea, for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and his highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

Mr. Trump is addressing the summit Wednesday morning local time, and is set to meet with Xi a day later. He’s also expected to meet at some point with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as the microchip giant partners with the Department of Energy to build an artificial intelligence supercomputer and presses for more access to China’s market.

The stop marks the final leg of his Asia tour, after visits to Malaysia and Japan in a five-day swing that’s largely been focused on trade and economic ties in the South Pacific. Mr. Trump is aiming to cement trade deals and extract tariffs from other countries. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that additional 100% tariffs that Mr. Trump had threatened on Chinese goods were “effectively off the table” after a two-day meeting with a Chinese negotiator.

Gyeongju, with a population of about 250,000 in southeastern Korea, sits on the opposite side of the country as Seoul, the nation’s capital, and thus, is farther from neighboring North Korea. Mr. Trump has said he would be open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip, but no such meeting has been planned. In Mr. Trump’s first term, he became the first sitting president to visit North Korea, a trip that happened after he put an invitation to Kim on social media. 

APEC is a regional economic group with 21 member countries around the Pacific Rim, with promoting free trade being a major component of the forum — despite Mr. Trump’s push for higher tariffs on many member countries. APEC members include China, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. 

The president is looking to cinch a trade agreement with South Korea, the United States’ sixth-largest trading partner. Over the summer, Mr. Trump announced a framework deal that involves the U.S. charging 15% tariffs on South Korean goods, while South Korea invests billions in U.S. industry and opens its market to American cars. Bessent told reporters the South Korea deal is unlikely to be resolved this week, but it’s close.

Before leaving Tokyo, Mr. Trump also signed a trade deal with new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday, cementing 15% tariffs on imported Japanese goods, lower than the 25% initially threatened by the president. Japan also pledged $550 billion in investments in U.S. industry. And the president announced trade frameworks with Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand earlier in the trip.

Mr. Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi could be a tense one, as the two world powers have clashed on trade and tariffs for months. 

The president is pressing Xi to loosen a set of tough export restrictions on rare earth elements, which are essential for everything from computer chips to aerospace, threatening 100% tariffs starting Saturday unless Beijing backs off. 

The trade war has also led China to cut off purchases of U.S. soybeans, hitting American farmers, though Bessent said Sunday he expects the soybean boycott to end. And Mr. Trump needs Chinese approval for a deal to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations from Beijing-based parent company ByteDance.

Nicholas Burns, a Biden-era U.S. ambassador to China, told CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes that Wednesday’s meeting is “very important,” calling the trade war a “test of wills” between the world’s two biggest economies.

“China is the most important competitor, adversary of the United States worldwide now. It will be in the future,” Burns said. “So the stakes are high, because we have lots of issues where we are competing with China.”