U.S. President Donald Trump will embark on his first Asia tour since beginning his second term. Trump is slated to visit Malaysia and Japan before coming to Korea over five days and four nights, and it remains uncertain whether a meeting with North Korea's State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong Un will take place during the trip.
On the 23rd (local time), White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced the plan at a briefing and provided the detailed schedule. According to Spokesperson Leavitt, on the night of the 24th (daytime on the 25th in Asia) Trump will depart Washington, D.C., aboard Air Force One and arrive in Malaysia on the morning of the 26th, where he will hold a bilateral meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim before attending an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders' working dinner.
After spending a night in Malaysia, he will head to Japan on the 27th, and on the 28th, the second day of the trip, he is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. It will be the first U.S.-Japan summit since the launch of the Takaichi Cabinet, drawing attention to whether they will discuss key issues such as "Korea-U.S.-Japan coordination," given Takaichi's reputation as a hard-line conservative.
After completing a two-night, three-day schedule in Japan, President Trump will visit Korea on the 29th, where he will stay for one night and two days—shorter than in Japan—but the Korea portion is expected to be the highlight of the tour. He will sit down with President Lee Jae-myung in Gyeongju, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit is scheduled, marking the first meeting in about two months since Lee's visit to the United States in Aug.
President Trump will not attend the APEC leaders' summit but is expected to deliver a keynote speech at the APEC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) luncheon and hold a working dinner with the leaders that evening.
On the morning of the 30th, the last day of the tour, he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will visit Korea to attend APEC, and it will be the first meeting between the two leaders in about six years since the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019. Trump has said it "will be a fairly long meeting."
Through this tour, President Trump appears intent on capturing both security and trade. In Malaysia, he will meet with key ASEAN member states to check China's influence in Southeast Asia, and from the 28th to the 30th, he is expected to address major economic agendas such as tariffs and investment in back-to-back meetings with the leaders of Japan, Korea, and China.
Trump has also signaled that he will raise the war in Ukraine and nuclear arms control in his talks with President Xi.
It remains uncertain, however, whether President Trump will meet with North Korea's State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong Un during this tour. Although the presidential schedule released by the White House that day did not include such a plan, the possibility of a "surprise meeting" between the two leaders cannot be ruled out.
Earlier, President Lee Jae-myung said in a CNN interview aired the previous day that "the likelihood of a U.S.-North Korea meeting this time is not high," but added, "If the United States and North Korea can meet abruptly, we would fully welcome it and actively support it."