LIMA, Peru (AP) – Donald Trump will be on the minds of world leaders as they gather for an Asia-Pacific trade summit.
The president-elect has made it clear that he is hostile to the kind of free trade deals that tend to be the focus of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, taking place this year in Peru’s capital. He’s also singled out group members China and Mexico in a populist campaign standing up for displaced American workers.
That has likely changed the tone and the agenda of a meeting that was expected to be part of a valedictory tour for U.S. President Barack Obama. It will be his last international summit before he leaves office Jan. 20 and those in attendance are to include Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Instead of promoting a now all-but dead trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, economic experts expect Obama will field uncomfortable questions about Trump’s pledges to overhaul U.S. trade policy, crack down on illegal immigration from Mexico and withdraw from a global agreement to fight climate change.
“World leaders like everyone else are hoping he will be more moderate in office than he was on the campaign trail,” Fred Bergsten, a senior fellow the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “But they are going to be worried.”