US President Trump hails Asian tour, but ends it abruptly
Manila, Philippines - Donald Trump hailed a ‘tremendously successful’ five-nation tour of Asia in which he made a lot of friends, as he ended it abruptly on Tuesday by skipping most of a Philippine summit.
The US President, who began his journey in Japan 12 days ago, said his trip had seen progress in his goal of narrowing America’s yawning trade deficits.
“I’ve made a lot of friends at the highest levels,” Trump told reporters shortly before boarding Air Force One in Manila, adding the trip was ‘tremendously successful’.
“I think the fruits... are going to be incredible,” he said.
“We’ve explained that the United States is open for trade, but reciprocal trade.”
Trump made the comments after briefly gathering with 18 other world leaders ahead of the start of the East Asia Summit, the final set piece of his trip in Asia.
Trump had initially planned to skip the summit, then backtracked after criticism he was turning his back on the region.
But he did not stay for the official start of the summit on Tuesday afternoon, also missing the preceding group photo with his fellow leaders.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sat in for him at the summit, which was scheduled to run into the evening.
The summit groups the tenmember Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Russia, as well as the United States.
In a trip that was dominated by the North Korean nuclear crisis, Trump was treated to pomp and pageantry in Japan and South Korea, where he repeatedly blasted the regime of Kim Jong-Un.
In China, where President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for a ‘state visit plus’ - a welcome Trump declared ‘people really have never seen anything like’ - the White House trumpeted more than US$250bn of trade deals.
Analysts say the headline fig- ure hides a paucity of deliverables, with lots of the agreements being non-binding memorandums of understanding.
Many will take years to yield results and some will never materialise.
At a regional summit in Vietnam, Trump returned to the topic of North Korea in what aides said was part of a strategy of forging a global front to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its weapons programme.
But the issue of alleged Russian interference in his 2016 election reared its head again when Trump appeared to endorse President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that there had been no plot by Moscow.
In the Philippines, Trump sparked headlines with his pally relationship with President Rodrigo Duterte, a man who has boasted of personally killing people and whose drug war has claimed thousands of lives.
‘More style than substance’
Trump’s marathon Asian trip passed off without any major incident, but for all the pomp and ceremony thrown his way, analysts say the tour ended with little to show in the way of concrete achievements.
From Tokyo to Manila, via Seoul, Beijing, Danang and Hanoi, the 71 year old President hammered out two priorities: Increasing pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme and pushing for better access to Asian markets for US companies.
But beyond the rhetoric and smiling photo opportunities, questions remain as to what progress he actually made on either issue.
“If you compare the before and after of Trump’s Asia tour, nothing has really changed (on the issue of North Korea),” Go Myong-Hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies - a Seoul-based thinktank - said.
Trump pushed Chinese President Xi Jinping to exert more pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but Beijing, Pyongyang’s main trading partner, ‘is sticking to its existing stance’ of limited sanctions, Go said.
Some experts note, however, that the meeting between the presidents of the top two world powers could bear fruit in the medium term.
“Xi Jinping gave Trump a huge welcome.... so China and US relationship is relatively stable at the moment. Under such an atmosphere, Xi Jinping won’t completely reject Trump’s demands,” said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
Before leaving, Trump said he would deliver his own verdict on the trip when he returns to Washington.
“We’ve made some very big steps with respect to trade, far bigger than anything you know,” he said, without elaborating.
The visit also provided disappointment on the long-term aim of a change in geo-strategic relations in the region.
Trump’s speech at the APEC regional forum in Danang, praised in advance by the White House, was at times reminiscent of his election campaign rallies on the theme of ‘America First’.