{"id":109397,"date":"2025-11-01T08:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/109397\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T08:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:41:07","slug":"apec-leaders-wrap-up-summit-after-trump-and-xi-reach-truce-in-trade-war-business-and-economy-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/109397\/","title":{"rendered":"APEC leaders wrap up summit after Trump and Xi reach truce in trade war | Business and Economy News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gyeongju, South Korea \u2013 Asian and Pacific Rim leaders have pledged their support for trade and investment that \u201cbenefits all\u201d, concluding a summit dominated by an agreement<\/a> between the leaders of the United States and China to call a truce in their trade war.<\/p>\n

The declaration by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on Saturday came after US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, earlier agreed to lower the temperature in the heated US-China rivalry<\/a> during a high-stakes summit held on the sidelines of the event.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Trump departed South Korea on Thursday after his talks with Xi, their first face-to-face meeting since 2019, leaving the Chinese leader to take centre stage at the two-day economic forum.<\/p>\n

Xi, who has cast China as a defender of multilateralism and free trade, told the opening of the event on Friday that countries needed to work together as they faced an \u201cincreasingly complex and volatile\u201d global environment.<\/p>\n

In their declaration, the APEC leaders said \u201crobust\u201d trade and investment were vital to the region\u2019s growth, and stressed their commitment to \u201cdeepening economic cooperation to navigate the evolving global environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

APEC, whose 21 members include the US, China, Japan and South Korea, will advance economic integration that is \u201cmarket-driven\u201d and enhance \u201cexperience sharing, capacity building, business engagement\u201d, the declaration said.<\/p>\n

The leaders also pledged regional cooperation on artificial intelligence and demographic challenges arising from falling birth rates.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the declaration, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, the summit\u2019s host, warned that economies were navigating an era of mounting global uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe free trade system is experiencing strong turbulence, global economic uncertainty is deepening, and momentum for trade and investment is weakening,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fraught exercise\u2019<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s statement notably did not directly reference multilateralism or the World Trade Organization, a reminder of the fraying consensus on free trade amid rising populism worldwide.<\/p>\n

Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, said it was \u201cprobably a miracle\u201d that the leaders had been able to agree on a joint statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the strong positions of some APEC economies, getting any agreed language into a document was a fraught exercise,\u201d Elms told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, these are wrapped up well in advance. This one hung in the balance to the last minute as officials swapped out wording to find an acceptable compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

After earlier meetings with his Japanese, Canadian and Thai counterparts, Xi later on Saturday sat down with Lee for talks expected to focus on issues including trade and North Korea\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

The meeting is the first between Xi \u2013 who lasted visited South Korea in 2014 \u2013 and Lee since the South Korean leader\u2019s election in a snap poll<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

Lee has pledged to pursue a more balanced policy towards China than his conservative predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached for briefly declaring martial law last year.<\/p>\n

South Korea, like other countries in the region, has had to walk a fine line between the US, its security guarantor, and China, its biggest trading partner.<\/p>\n

The US stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea and is treaty-bound to come to its defence if it is attacked, a legacy of Washington\u2019s support for the country in its 1950-53 war with North Korea.<\/p>\n

South Korea sent nearly one-fifth of its exports to China in 2024, with the value of its shipments hitting $133bn.<\/p>\n

The US was the country\u2019s second-largest export destination, with shipments of $127.8bn.<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s relations with China have been tested by a series of disputes in recent years, most notably a spat over the US\u2019s 2017 deployment of a THAAD missile defence system in the country.<\/p>\n

Lee wants to see South Korea\u2019s most important relationships \u201cremain stable, which means lowering tensions with China, preventing a drastic decline in US relations and capitalising on the diplomatic heavy lifting his predecessor did with Japan\u201d, said Rob York, director for regional affairs at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor now, that will mean striking a friendly note with both Chairman Xi and President Trump, even as he takes steps behind the scenes to lessen dependencies on the US for security and to counter PRC hybrid war operations in South Korea related to maritime issues and technology theft,\u201d York told Al Jazeera, referring to China\u2019s official name, the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitial signs suggest Lee is serious about tackling those issues but will try to do so discreetly \u2013 there really isn\u2019t much to be gained right now in having those issues erupt in public.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gyeongju, South Korea \u2013 Asian and Pacific Rim leaders have pledged their support for trade and investment that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1631,114,2681,184,85,2682,46,43,238,11471,1590],"class_list":["post-109397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-international-trade","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-korea","tag-trade-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}