Trump Asia trip puts ASEAN summit and trade tensions in focus ahead of APEC in Shenzhen
Southeast Asian leaders are gathering in Manila for ASEAN's annual summit as US President Donald Trump begins an Asia-Pacific trip that is expected to put trade disruption and shifting alliances under scrutiny. Trump is scheduled to make a brief stop in Manila on Tuesday for a meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He is then due to travel on to the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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The ASEAN meetings are running from Sunday to Tuesday and include both multilateral and bilateral sessions. According to the supplied material, this will be Trump's second visit to Southeast Asia since returning to the White House, after his attendance at the 2025 ASEAN summit in Malaysia. The White House has also confirmed that Trump, Xi and Russia's President Vladimir Putin will hold trilateral talks for the first time.
The trip comes after Washington announced new tariffs in July on dozens of trade partners, including most economies in Southeast Asia. The duties, set at between 10% and 12.5%, followed a Supreme Court ruling that struck down steeper reciprocal tariffs in February. The Office of the US Trade Representative said the measures were imposed on 60 trade partners over alleged failures to clamp down on forced labour.
The tariff policy has added pressure to a region that has so far weathered much of Trump's trade campaign better than some other parts of the world. The supplied material says US imports from ASEAN rose by more than 29% to $453.6bn in 2025, widening the trade deficit between the two sides to $327.4bn. That makes the Manila summit and the later APEC meetings important not only as diplomatic gatherings, but also as tests of how Southeast Asian governments manage economic ties with Washington and Beijing at the same time.
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The broader backdrop is a region that has become more central to global trade flows, in part because of the diversion of Chinese commerce through Southeast Asia. The supplied material also notes that the Trump administration is carrying out further trade probes over alleged national security and excess manufacturing concerns, which could lead to more tariffs for Southeast Asian partners. For ASEAN leaders, that means the current meetings are taking place under unusually direct economic pressure from the United States.
What remains unclear is how far the talks in Manila and Shenzhen will move beyond set-piece diplomacy and into concrete trade or security outcomes. It is also not yet clear whether the planned trilateral meeting involving Trump, Xi and Putin will produce any substantive agreement. The main developments to watch are the Trump-Marcos meeting, any signals from the APEC summit, and whether Washington follows through with additional trade measures.
