President Donald Trump plans to attend an October leaders meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur, according to the prime minister of host nation Malaysia.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told lawmakers in Malaysia on Thursday that the US president had accepted his invitation during a phone call earlier in the day.
He added that the two also discussed Trump’s tariff rollout on Aug. 1 — without saying what rate Malaysia will get — and the efforts over the past week to end border clashes between Asean members Cambodia and Thailand.
“He started by expressing his appreciation to Malaysia for its role resolving the Thai-Cambodia conflict,” said Anwar, who is also currently Asean’s chair. “I said this is because of the Asean unity and their positive attitudes and the cooperation of US and Trump and China’s Xi.”
The decision to attend, which has yet to be confirmed by the White House, comes as Trump is set to slap higher tariffs across Asean, a group of 10 nations that ship more than $350 billion worth of goods annually to the US. The region is home to more than 600 million people across some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and is strategically located at the juncture of the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Trump helped push Thailand and Cambodia toward ceasefire, agreed in Malaysia on Monday, by calling the leaders of both countries and telling them they wouldn’t get trade deals as long as fighting continued. Anwar, in his comment Thursday, also nodded at cooperation by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month used his first visit to Asia to attend an Asean summit in Malaysia. At that event, he had his first in-person meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in what could be a precursor to a Trump-Xi meeting.
Many Southeast Asian nations are concerned about the impact of Trump’s tariffs. Vietnamese goods face a 20% levy, while Indonesia and the Philippines will be tariffed at 19%. That’s higher than the levels set for Britain, the European Union, and many other economies.
Anwar had earlier also invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Asean Summit in October, Malaysia’s official Bernama news agency reported in May. If the Russian leader were to attend, that would create the possibility of a meeting with Trump, who has been pushing Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
