Albanese dines with Trump and other leaders as Xi meeting awaits

Gyeongju: For the second time in little more than a week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dined with US President Donald Trump, this time accompanied by a coterie of leaders from an assortment of Asia-Pacific nations.

The venue was not the White House but a banquet room at the Hilton in the South Korean tourist town of Gyeongju, where Trump and the leaders took their seats somewhat awkwardly at a small round table for a dinner hosted by President Lee Jae Myung.

But not before Trump praised Albanese for their “great meeting a week ago” and said he had “done a fantastic job”, in an exchange of small talk before the assembled press.

“We’re working together on rare earths, but we’re working on a lot of things together,” the US president said.

With Albanese seated to his right and Lee to his left, Trump used a handheld microphone to announce that the contentious $US350 billion ($532 billion) trade deal with South Korea was “pretty much finalised”, despite the host country’s earlier concerns that it would destabilise their economy.

He also told Lee he was optimistic that “things will work out very well” with South Korea’s volatile northern neighbour.

“You have a neighbour that hasn’t been as nice as they could be, and I think they will be. I know Kim Jong-un very well,” Trump said.

Lee also asked Trump to allow Seoul to reprocess nuclear fuel to power when the two leaders met on Wednesday. Seoul is barred from reprocessing without US consent, under a pact between the countries.

The South Korean leader emphasised he wasn’t attempting to build submarines capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but instead looking to replace diesel-powered ships that have struggled to track North Korean and Chinese ships.

“They could patrol and defend both the East and West Seas of the Korean Peninsula, which in turn would significantly reduce the operational burden on US forces,” Lee said.

In a social media post on Thursday morning AEDT, Trump said he had given South Korea approval. “Our Military Alliance is stronger than ever before and, based on that, I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble, diesel powered Submarines that they have now,” the US president wrote.

US nuclear submarine technology is widely regarded as some of the most sensitive and highly guarded technology its military possesses.

The dinner was the prelude to the blockbuster event on Thursday, when Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time during his second term. He will then make a speedy exit, leaving South Korea before the APEC summit kicks off.

“I think we’re going to have something that’s going to be very, very satisfactory to China and to us,” Trump told his dinner companions, referring to the prospect of a deal with the Chinese president.

He remarked at one point that he anticipated meeting with Xi to last between three and four hours.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump revealed he expected to lower the 20 per cent tariff he imposed on China earlier this year as punishment for their role in fentanyl trafficking in exchange for more law enforcement co-operation.

“Very much looking forward to my meeting with President Xi of China,” Trump said in a post on TruthSocial on Thursday morning (AEDT).

Trump was the guest of honour at the dinner, but it was not immediately clear on what basis the other six countries – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore – scored an invitation, other than they were in town for the 21-member gathering of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney strode into the dinner, ignoring reporters’ questions about whether he had a message for the US president, who this week vowed to increase levies on Canada in outrage over an anti-tariff TV advertisement that aired in Ontario. The pair sat directly across from each other, even though Trump had made clear he had no time for Canada on his six-day blitz through Asia.

“I don’t want to meet with him,” he said of Carney on Monday.

Albanese joked that Carney and Singaporean leader Lawrence Wong should have “ride-shared” to the event, each of them fresh off the summit treadmill at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in Kuala Lumpur that week.

Earlier in the day, Lee exalted Trump with the royal treatment as Air Force One touched down on the tarmac to the sound of a military band playing “YMCA,” his US rally pep song. Later, Lee gifted Trump a replica gold crown from the ancient Korean kingdom Silla, and awarded him the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, Korea’s highest honour.

Albanese will have his own bilateral meeting with President Lee tomorrow, one that is guaranteed to be significantly more low-key, and will visit the headquarters of global steel manufacturer Pohang Iron and Steel Company, before the APEC summit starts in earnest on Friday.

But the conference, coming at the tail end of a busy summit season, has been overshadowed by the high-stakes meeting happening on the sidelines.

The stage has been set for Trump and Xi to sign off on a deal that is expected to roll back some of the latest trade restrictions the countries have imposed on each other, after both sides’ negotiators agreed to a consensus framework earlier in the week.

As part of the anticipated deal, the US expects Beijing to delay for a year sweeping new curbs it launched on rare earths exports, while Trump will abandon his threat to hit Chinese goods with an extra 100 per cent tariff on November 1.

In a sign of an imminent breakthrough on the eve of the meeting, China made its first purchase of US soybeans for the season after having boycotted them for months.

China only confirmed the meeting between Xi and Trump on Wednesday afternoon.

“We are willing to make joint efforts with the United States to promote the positive results of this meeting and provide new guidance and impetus for the stable development of China-US relations,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

With Bloomberg

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