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WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump will attend an Asia-Pacific summit on Friday as he continues to reject his electoral defeat, a day after President Xi Jinping used the forum to praise China’s growing economic influence.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, held online this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, brings together 21 countries from the Pacific Basin, accounting for around 60 percent of global GDP.
Beijing has become the main driving force behind the trade grouping after the United States began withdrawing from multilateral bodies during Trump’s presidency.
President Xi, prompted by last week’s signing of the world’s largest trade deal, gave a speech at the forum Thursday, coming from China as a turning point for world trade and vowing to keep its “oversized” economy open.
Washington broke with its usual practice and did not send a representative to deliver a public address during the two days of meetings, but a senior US official confirmed that Trump would participate in the official summit on Friday night.
He will give a speech to his fellow leaders, but the event is mostly closed to the media, according to officials from the host country Malaysia. It will be only the second time that Trump, who is fighting his electoral defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, has participated in APEC, the other time was in 2017.
Oh Ei Sun, an analyst at Singapore’s Institute of International Affairs, said Trump would aim to “present himself as ‘presidential’ on the world stage.” “Trump, of course, would take this opportunity to present himself as incumbent president to obtain national political advantages,” he told the France-Presse agency.
The president also “would like to reiterate his administration’s distinctive emphasis on protectionism and in the process preventing China from claiming leadership on the global free trade agenda,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly claimed without proof that the vote in the November 3 election and the recount were fraudulent. His campaign has launched lawsuits challenging the vote, while his allies also sought to pressure local officials to postpone the certification of vote counts.
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