• ASEAN summit in Malaysia slated for October 26–28.
• Malaysia trade deal, Thai–Cambodia peace accord eyed.
• Possible sideline meeting with Brazil’s President Lula da Silva.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump is set to embark on a major trip to Asia this week with all eyes on an expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has huge implications for the global economy.

Trump said on Wednesday he was making a “big trip” to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first visit to the region since he returned to the White House in a blaze of tariffs and geopolitical brinkmanship.

Much of the trip remains shrouded in uncertainty. The White House has given almost no details, and Trump has warned that his anticipated sit-down with Xi in South Korea may not even happen amid ongoing tensions.

But Trump has made it clear he hopes to seal a “good” deal with China and end a bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has caused global shockwaves.

The host nations are meanwhile set to roll out the red carpet to ensure they stay on the right side of the unpredictable 79-year-old, and win the best deals they can on tariffs and security assistance.

Malaysia and Japan

His first stop is expected to be Malaysia for the October 26-28 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — a grouping Trump skipped several times in his first term.

Trump is set to ink a trade deal with Malaysia — but more importantly to oversee the signing of a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia, as he continues his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.

“President Trump is keen to see the more positive results of the peace negotiations between Thailand and Cambodia,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Wednesday.

The US leader may also meet Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of the summit to improve ties after months of bad blood, officials from both countries told AFP.

Trump’s next stop is expected to be Tokyo where he will be able to meet conservative Sanae Takaichi, named this week as Japan’s first woman prime minister.

Japan has escaped the worst of the tariffs Trump slapped on countries around the world to end what he calls unfair trade balances that are “ripping off the United States.”

At the same time, Trump wants Japan to halt Russian energy imports and has also urged Tokyo to follow Western allies in increasing defence spending.

Xi in South Korea?

But the climax of the trip is expected to be in South Korea, where Trump is due to arrive on October 29 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit — and potentially meet Xi.

The first meeting between the two leaders since Trump’s return to office could smooth over the trade war between Washington and Beijing — but Beijing’s rare earth curbs have also infuriated Trump.

Trump initially threatened to cancel the meeting and imposed fresh tariffs, before saying he would go ahead after all. But he added on Tuesday that still “maybe it won’t happen.”

He said on Wednesday that he hoped to make a deal with Xi on “everything” and also hoped the Chinese leader could have a “big influence” on getting Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war.

Analysts warned not to expect any breakthroughs.

“The meeting will be a data point along an existing continuum rather than an inflection point in the relationship,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution.

South Korea, seeking its own trade deal, is reportedly considering the rare step of awarding Trump the Grand Order of Mugunghwa — the country’s highest decoration — during his visit.

North Korea will also be on the agenda. The country fired multiple ballistic missiles on Wednesday, just days before Trump was due to visit.

Trump has said he hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following several meetings during the US president’s first term, but there has been no confirmation of reports that the White House was looking at a new meeting this time.

NAGPUR: Brandishing bamboo sticks and chanting patriotic hymns, thousands of uniformed men parade in central India, a striking show of strength by the country’s millions-strong Hindu ultranationalist group.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — the National Volunteer Organisation, or RSS — marked its 100th anniversary this month with a grand ceremony at its headquarters in Nagpur.

AFP was one of a handful of foreign media outlets granted rare access to the group, which forms the ideological and organisational backbone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power since 2014.

Like the 75-year-old prime minister, critics accuse it of eroding the rights of India’s Muslim minority and undermining the secular constitution.

At the parade, RSS volunteers in white shirts, brown trousers and black hats marched, boxed and stretched in time to shrill whistles and barked orders.

“Forever I bow to thee, loving Motherland! Motherland of us Hindus!” they sang, in a scene that evoked paramilitary drills of the past.

“May my life […] be laid down in thy cause!”

‘Proud’

Hindus make up around 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people.

Founded in 1925, the RSS calls itself “the world’s largest organisation”, though it does not give membership figures.

At the heart of its vision is “Hindutva” — the belief that Hindus represent not only a religious group but are India’s true national identity.

“They are willing to fight against those who will come in their way […] that means minorities, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other Hindus who do not subscribe to the idea,” historian Mridula Mukherjee said.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat uses softer language, saying that minorities were accepted but that they “should not cause division”.

Anant Pophali, 53, said three generations of his family had been involved with the group. “The RSS made me proud to be an Indian,” the insurance company worker said.

Bloody origins

The RSS was formed during the imperial rule of the British. But it diverged sharply from that of independence efforts by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party, whose leader Jawaharlal Nehru considered them “fascist by nature”.

Mukherjee said archives showed “a link between the RSS and fascist movements in Europe”.

“They have said, very clearly, that the way the Nazis were treating the Jews should be the way our own minorities should be treated,” she told AFP.

The RSS does not comment directly on such parallels, but Bhagwat insisted that “today we are more acceptable”.

The RSS was an armed Hindu militia during the bloody 1947 partition of India and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Hindu extremists blamed Gandhi for breaking India apart. A former RSS member assassinated him in 1948, and the group was banned for nearly two years.

But the RSS rebuilt quietly, focusing on local units known as “shakhas” to recruit. Today, it claims 83,000 of them nationwide, as well as over 50,000 schools and 120,000 social welfare projects.

At a shakha in Nagpur, Alhad Sadachar, 49, said the unit was “meant to develop togetherness”.

“You can get a lot of good energy, a lot of good values, like helping those in need”, he said.

At a shaka that AFP was allowed to attend, dozens of members — many middle-aged or elderly, and not in uniform — gathered for an hour of calisthenics and song.

But in a show of symbolism, they congregated beneath a saffron flag — the colour of Hinduism — rather than India’s tricolour.

‘A country that is one’

The RSS remains deeply political. The group re-emerged in the late 1980s, spearheading a movement that ended with a violent mob demolishing a centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya — now replaced by a gleaming temple to the Hindu god Rama.

“That was the turning point,” said Mukherjee, the historian, adding that the RSS was “able to create a mass mobilisation on religious issues, that became at its heart clearly anti-Muslim”.

The group helped deliver Modi’s BJP party an electoral landslide in 2014.

Since then, Modi — a former RSS “pracharak”, or organiser — has pursued policies that critics say marginalise India’s estimated 220 million Muslims, 15% of the population.

“There has been a clear increase in terms of violence, lynching and hate speech since Modi has taken over,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, director of the US-based Centre for the Study of Organised Hate.

RSS leaders deny it has participated in atrocities. “Those allegations are baseless,” Bhagwat said.

“Atrocities were never done by the RSS. And if it happens anyway, I condemn that.”

Under Modi, it has expanded its reach.”The RSS has been able to stir Indian society in a direction that is more nationalistic, less liberal in a Western sense,” said Swapan Dasgupta, a former nationalist parliamentarian.

But volunteer Vyankatesh Somalwar, 44, said the group only pushed “good values”.

“The most important thing is to contribute to your country,” he said. “A country that is one, above all.”

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft as his frustration grows with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war.

The move came after EU countries on Wednesday approved a 19th package of sanctions on Moscow for its war against Ukraine that included a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports. Trump’s measures also followed Britain’s sanctioning last week of Rosneft and Lukoil.

The US Treasury Department said it was prepared to take further action as it called on Moscow to agree immediately to a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

“Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”

Oil prices jumped more than $2 a barrel after the US measures, with Brent crude futures extending gains after settlement, rising to about $64.

The sanctions are a major policy shift for Trump, who had not put sanctions on Russia over the war and instead relied on trade measures. Trump earlier this year imposed additional 25% tariffs on goods from India in retaliation for its purchasing discounted Russian oil.

The US has not imposed tariffs on China, another major buyer of Russian oil. A $60 price cap on Russian oil imposed by Western countries after Russia’s invasion has shifted Russia’s oil customers in recent years from Europe to Asia.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday he had cancelled a planned summit in Hungary with Putin because it didn’t feel like it was the right time.

Trump also said he hopes the sanctions on Russian oil companies will not need to be in place for a long time. Trump said last year that he likes to remove sanctions quickly because of the risks to the dominance of the dollar in global transactions that the measures can bring. Russia has often asked for payments for oil in other currencies.

‘Can’t be one and done’

Analysts said the measures were a big step and long overdue.

“This can’t just be one and done,” said Edward Fishman, a former US official who is now a senior research scholar at Columbia University. He said the question was whether the US now threatens sanctions on anyone doing business with Rosneft and Lukoil.

Jeremy Paner, a former sanctions investigator at the Treasury Department and now a partner at law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed, said the absence of banks and Indian or Chinese oil purchasers in Wednesday’s sanctions means they “will not get Putin’s attention.”

A senior Ukrainian official, however, said the step was “great news” and that the two Russian energy companies were among US sanctions targets proposed by Kyiv in the past.

The Treasury also sanctioned dozens of Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries. The measures block US assets of those designated and prevent Americans from doing business with them.

The Russian embassy in Washington and the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sanctions.

EU targets Russia’s shadow fleet

The EU’s LNG ban will take effect in two stages: short-term contracts will end after six months, and long-term contracts from January 1, 2027. The full ban comes a year earlier than the Commission’s proposed roadmap to end the bloc’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

The new EU package also adds new travel restrictions on Russian diplomats and lists 117 more vessels from Moscow’s shadow fleet, mostly tankers, bringing the total to 558. The listings include banks in Kazakhstan and Belarus, the presidency said.

EU diplomatic sources told Reuters that four entities linked to China’s oil industry will be listed, but the names will not be made public until the official adoption on Thursday. These include two oil refineries, a trading company and an entity which helps in the circumvention of oil and other sectors.