LIMA, Peru — After two days of meetings in Lima that rarely moved beyond platitudes to discuss strategies for robust economic engagement, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum ended Saturday in a spirit of détente that many fear will annual summit does not occur again. for the next four years.
The 21 leaders of Pacific Rim economies, including US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, descended on Peru this week as new US President Donald Trump vowed to withdraw the United States for its leadership of a global free trade program.
Few could help but note that Biden’s late entrance to the traditional APEC family photo on Saturday lent itself to political metaphor, as the rest of the leaders took their places on the risers before looking around from them to find that Biden had disappeared. They giggled for five awkward minutes before a seemingly stunned Biden arrived and took the stage in the far corner.
Chinese President Xi, who this week draped himself in the banner of globalization by inaugurating a massive $1.3 billion megaport in Peru and using his speeches to reject protectionism, got the best seat on stage for the photo, in the foreground. The leaders all wore bark-colored wool scarves from Peru – in the APEC tradition of posing in clothing representative of the host country.
Biden left the stage as reporters shouted questions, demanding an answer to the fact that this was his last APEC summit and one of his last major world events as US president.
Much of the discussion in APEC this year has focused on the heightened trade and security rivalry between the United States and China. Biden and Xi will meet later Saturday for their third and final meeting of Biden’s term. They last met a year ago, at APEC in California.
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