Trump heads to Asia with hopes of shifting the momentum after midterm setbacks hurt him at home

详细摘要

President Trump heads to Asia this week and he’s aiming to shift the momentum after Republican losses in the midterm elections.

WASHINGTON — President Trump heads to Asia this week, hoping to make some big attention-grabbing moves on the world stage after his party suffered deep losses in the midterm elections, diminishing his standing at home.

The Republican president is using the international trip to try to shift momentum, and he is poised to make a splash with a historic three-way meeting with Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia to talk about their nuclear stockpiles. Trump has long boasted about leveraging his relationships with the leaders of two of America’s biggest global adversaries, though he has failed so far to achieve major breakthroughs with them.

He first heads to the Philippines to meet on Tuesday with Southeast Asian leaders who look to the United States for help countering Beijing’s aggression in the region. Trump will then go to China on Wednesday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. There, he will have his third face-to-face meeting this year with Xi and see Putin, too.

A year ago, Trump used a similar Asia trip to agree on a trade truce with China and secure investment pledges from Japan and South Korea. This time, Trump is going with his party no longer in control of Congress as of January and with attention beginning to turn to a crop of presidential hopefuls who aim to replace him in 2028.

“I think he, like other presidents, has figured out that in a moment where things are really hard domestically: Get on an airplane and go international,” said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state in Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration and chairman of The Asia Group, a consultancy.

Democratic President Barack Obama flew to Beijing days after his party lost the Senate in 2014 to negotiate carbon emission targets with Xi. Republican President George W. Bush went to APEC in Vietnam after the GOP lost control of Congress in 2006, though the Iraq War hung over his travels.

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