Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul will travel to Malaysia on Saturday to sign a ceasefire agreement with Cambodia, a ceremony to be witnessed by US President Donald Trump, after the prime minister decided to skip the main ASEAN summit following the death of Queen Mother Sirikit. While foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather in Kuala Lumpur, much of the diplomatic focus will be on the sidelines, where US and Chinese teams are set to hold trade talks. Charnvirakul said he had "requested that the ceasefire signing ceremony be held on Sunday morning, after which he will return to Thailand." He also confirmed he would miss the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea this week. Trump is scheduled to arrive in Malaysia on Sunday morning for the first stop of his Asian tour. He is slated to witness the signing of a broader ceasefire agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, after helping to mediate an end to a five-day border conflict in July that killed dozens and temporarily displaced some 300,000 people. During its annual meeting, ASEAN plans to push for multilateral trade and deepen ties with new partners while managing the fallout from Trump's global tariff campaign. The bloc will also welcome East Timor, Asia's youngest nation, as its 11th member. Trump's Asia tour After Malaysia, Trump will travel to Japan to meet newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi is expected to reaffirm her predecessor's plans to increase military spending and invest $550bn in the United States at Trump's direction. Following his visit to Japan, Trump intends to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in South Korea ahead of an international trade summit. Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to approximately 155% from 1 November if a deal is not reached, a move that would almost certainly provoke a response from Beijing and end the current truce. Besides trade, the two leaders are expected to discuss Taiwan, a long-standing point of contention, and Russia, a Chinese ally now under extensive US sanctions over the war in Ukraine. It remains unclear whether Trump will attempt to resume trade negotiations with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is also touring Asia, after talks were cut off. An official said the two leaders would "likely meet" at a dinner with other leaders on Wednesday.
