US president Donald Trump started his Asia tour in Malaysia Sunday by rewarding Cambodia and Thailand with trade deals after co-signing their ceasefire pact, and saying he was confident of a ‘great’ trade deal at upcoming talks with China’s Xi Jinping.
Trump brimmed with confidence ahead of the meeting with Xi in South Korea, that seeks to end the bruising trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
‘I think we’re going to make a deal,’ he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, as US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and China’s vice premier He Lifeng concluded two days of meetings.
China’s vice commerce minister Li Chenggang told reporters a ‘preliminary consensus’ had been reached.
Bessent said the talks, seeking an agreement to avoid further 100 per cent tariffs on China due to come into effect on November 1, ‘set the stage for the leaders’ meeting in a very positive framework’.
He later told ABC that ‘tariffs will be averted’ and signalled a tentative deal had been agreed that would delay rare earths curbs and resuming US soybean exports.
For Trump, however, first on his agenda in Kuala Lumpur — on the side-lines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit — was co-signing a ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia.
Trump called the truce he helped broker — after the deadliest clashes between the neighbours in decades — a ‘monumental step’, adding that in parallel, he had struck ‘a major trade deal with Cambodia and a very important critical minerals agreement with Thailand’.
As he left Washington, Trump added to speculation that he could meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time since 2019 while on the Korean peninsula, saying he was ‘open to it’.
The US president, on his first trip to Asia since returning to the White House in January in a blaze of tariffs and international dealmaking, heads to Japan on Monday on the next leg of his tour.
In Malaysia, Trump’s first visit as president, his flight was escorted on its final approach to Kuala Lumpur by two Malaysian F-18 jets.
Greeted with a red carpet welcome and a sea of Malaysian and US flags, a grinning Trump responded with his trademark arm-waving dance to cultural performers.
Trump, who also signed a trade and minerals deal with Malaysia, rode with prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in his armoured Cadillac — nicknamed ‘The Beast’.
A small group of protesters, including some holding placards reading ‘Dump Trump’, rallied elsewhere in the city.
Trump met Qatar’s leaders — among the guarantors of the Gaza ceasefire deal he spearheaded — during a refuelling stop, and met Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to improve ties with the leftist leader.
‘I think we’ll be able to do some pretty good deals,’ Trump said to Lula.
Trump will on Tuesday meet Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi, who has put strengthening US ties as her ‘administration’s top priority on the diplomatic and security front’.
The US leader said he had heard ‘great things about her’ and hailed the fact that she was an acolyte of assassinated former premier Shinzo Abe, with whom he had close ties.
Japan has escaped the worst of the tariffs Trump slapped on countries around the world to end what he calls unfair trade balances that are ‘ripping off the United States’.
The highlight of the trip is expected to be South Korea, where Trump will meet Xi for the first time since his return to office.
Trump is due to land in the southern port city of Busan on Wednesday ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and will meet South Korean president Lee Jae Myung.
On Thursday, global markets will be watching closely to see if the meeting with Xi can halt the trade war sparked by Trump’s sweeping tariffs, especially after a recent dispute over Beijing’s rare earth curbs.
South Korea’s reunification minister has said there is a ‘considerable’ chance that Trump and North Korea’s Kim will also meet.
The two leaders last met in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas during Trump’s first term.
Kim has said he would also be open to meeting the US president if Washington drops its demand that Pyongyang give up its nuclear arsenal.
