The APEC summit was largely overshadowed by a breakthrough meeting on the sidelines between Trump and Xi, during which they agreed to pause a damaging trade feud that has exposed the fragility of key supply chains.
Beijing had threatened to wield its monopoly over rare earths mining and processing by imposing sweeping new export controls on the industry, in retaliation to the US imposing tariffs and choking China’s access to high-tech chips and software.
Canadian leader Mark Carney struck the bleakest note at the summit, using a speech to APEC business leaders to declare that the world of expanding “rules-based, liberalised trade and investment … is gone”.
Facing threats from Trump to impose additional tariffs on Canada’s economy, Carney issued an invitation to other countries to boost their trade ties, saying his government was charting a new course “to double our non-US exports over the course of the next decade”.
With Trump absent from the two-day meeting, Xi took advantage of the vacuum to position China as the defender of the norms of free trade and an alternative to the United States as a stable, reliable trading partner.
In a speech to the summit on Saturday, Xi also called for a global body to govern the development of artificial intelligence to ensure it served as a “public good for the international community”.
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