Oct. 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump, during his long flight from Washington to three Asian nations over six days, said he hopes to work out a trade deal with China and assistance in getting Russia to end the war with Ukraine.
Trump left the U.S. amid a government shutdown, East Wing demolition for a ballroom and illegal immigration crackdown in U.S. cities.
Air Force One departed late Friday from Washington and made a refueling stop in Doha, Qatar, where he met with Qatar’s emir and prime minister aboard the plane, and was joined by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who has been in the region.
Trump was to reach Malaysia on Sunday morning local time. Stops are also set for Japan and South Korea.
“The first message is Trump the peacemaker. The second is Trump the moneymaker,” Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told NNBC News. “And then, of course, with the meeting with China, I think what everybody’s expecting is that there’s probably not going to be a big trade deal, but there will be an effort to de-escalate or put a pause on the situation.”
On Thursday, Trump plans to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.
“We want China to help us out on Russia,” he said. “We’ll have a good meeting. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a great meeting, maybe a great meeting.”
The war has been waged since Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2023.
“One of the things we’ll talk about is the Russia-Ukraine,” Trump said. “They’re killing 7,000 people a week, soldiers, mostly soldiers, and we’ll certainly be talking about that.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is continuing to call on the United States to send Patriot missile defense systems. Russia struck Ukraine overnight with a missile and drone attack, killing at least two people and wounding 12 in the capital of Kyiv.
Trump also will discuss trade issues, including a threatened 130% tariff on imports from China, with 100% starting Nov. 1 after 10% in February and 20% in March. China has threatened a 100% reciprocal duty.
He had threatened to cancel his meeting with Xi.
Trump is not happy with China’s expanded export controls on rare earth minerals and other related technologies
Aboard the plane, Trump said he would subsidize U.S. farmers if he did not reach a deal with China.
“I’m not sure that either side is fully prepared to climb down from the positions that they’ve staked out,” Ryan Hass, director of the China Center at Brookings, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, told NPR.
Trump will first meet Sunday with Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, which is hosting this year’s summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Then he is scheduled for a working dinner with leaders from the association.
On Tuesday, Trump is due to meet Sanae Takaichi, who was elected Japanese prime minister this week. She might want to revisit the U.S.-Japan trade deal in July, which includes a15% duty on Japanese imports. In April, Trump threatened a 25% rate.
The previous rate was less than 2%, according to World Bank data.
On Wednesday, he will meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Busan, and then speak at a luncheon for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and participate in a US-APEC leaders working dinner.
Lee took office in June.
The tariffs on imports from South Korea, announced in July, is 15% with higher duties for specific products, including 50% on steel, like for other nations.
Trump also said there is a possibility he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I don’t know. We let him know. He knows that I’m going there,” Trump said Friday night before the trip.
Trump met with Kim three times during his first presidency: Singapore in June 2018, Hanoi in February 2019 and the Demilitarized Zone in June 2019 when he briefly stepped acorss the border into North Korea. He was the first U.S. president to go there.
The White House said Trump will participate a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand. Trump has claimed credit for helping to resolve the conflict.
“It’s not the U.S. president coming to Asia to meet the multilateral schedule; it’s the U.S. president coming to Asia and then bending the multilateral schedule around his schedule,” Cha said.
“Everybody still wants to cut a deal with the U.S. president. They all want tariff relief, and they will try to make a deal to achieve that.”
Trmp has posted on Truth Social about his upcoming trip. The newsfeed included endorsements of about two dozen candidates for the U.S. House.
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