• Trump to meet Xi in S Korea to finalise trade deal, end tariff war.
• Says he’s open to meeting North Korea’s Kim during regional trip.
• All set to sign Thailand-Cambodia peace deal upon arrival in Asia.

US President Donald Trump arrived in Malaysia on Sunday on the first leg of an Asian tour that will include high-stakes trade talks with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Trump is set to meet Xi in South Korea on the last day of his regional swing in a bid to seal a deal to end the bruising trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

As he left Washington, Trump added to speculation that he could meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time since 2019 while on the Korean peninsula, saying he was “open to it”.

The US president will also visit Japan on his first trip to Asia since returning to the White House in January in a blaze of tariffs and international dealmaking.

“We will be signing the Peace Deal immediately upon arrival,” Trump said on social media of the truce he helped broker after the deadliest clashes between Thailand and Cambodia in decades.

Trump said he expected to meet Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit to improve ties with the leftist leader after months of bad blood.

During a refuelling stop in Qatar on the way from Washington, the US president met with leaders of the Gulf emirate, which is among the guarantors of the Gaza ceasefire deal spearheaded by Trump.

After Malaysia, Trump is expected in Tokyo on Monday, where the following day he will meet Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

The US leader said he had heard “great things about her” and hailed the fact that she was an acolyte of assassinated former premier Shinzo Abe, with whom he had close ties.

Takaichi said she told Trump in a phone call on Saturday that “strengthening the Japan-US alliance is my administration’s top priority on the diplomatic and security front”.

The US leader said he had heard “great things about her” and hailed the fact that she was an acolyte of assassinated former premier Shinzo Abe, with whom he had close ties.

Takaichi said she told Trump in a phone call on Saturday that “strengthening the Japan-US alliance is my administration’s top priority on the diplomatic and security front”.

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”.

The highlight of the trip is expected to be South Korea, where Trump will meet Xi for the first time since his return to office.

Trump is due to land in the southern port city of Busan on Wednesday ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and will meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

On Thursday, global markets will be watching closely to see if the meeting with Xi can halt the trade war sparked by Trump’s sweeping tariffs, especially after a recent dispute over Beijing’s rare-earth curbs.

Trump initially threatened to cancel the meeting and announced the fresh 100 percent tariffs during that row, before saying he would go ahead after all.

South Korea’s reunification minister has said there is a “considerable” chance that Trump and North Korea’s Kim will also meet.

The two leaders last met in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas during Trump’s first term.

Kim has said he would also be open to meeting the US president if Washington drops its demand that Pyongyang give up its nuclear arsenal.

East Timor joined the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc as its 11th member state on Sunday, after 14 years of campaigning.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose country currently chairs ASEAN, said East Timor’s accession “completes the ASEAN family — reaffirming our shared destiny and deep sense of regional kinship”.

“Within this community, Timor-Leste’s development and its strategic autonomy will find firm and lasting support,” Anwar told an ASEAN summit in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

East Timor, also known by its Portuguese name Timor-Leste, is the youngest country in the region, having gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 after 24 years of occupation.

President Jose Ramos-Horta has long campaigned for ASEAN membership, and an application was first submitted in 2011 during his first term.

The signing of a declaration on East Timor’s admission on Sunday is also seen as one of the crowning achievements of Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship.

East Timor was granted observer status to the regional body in 2022 but its full membership was delayed by various challenges.

The country continues to grapple with high levels of inequality, malnutrition and unemployment.

It remains heavily reliant on oil, with little diversification into other sectors, and some concerns remain over its ability to participate meaningfully in ASEAN’s development agenda.

It also faces challenges in infrastructure development and human resource capacity, seen as critical for effective participation in ASEAN’s economic community.

In September, thousands of student-led protesters demonstrated against a multi-million dollar plan to purchase Toyota Prado SUVs for each of the country’s 65 members of parliament and lifetime pensions for former MPs.

Demonstrators and police clashed for two days, before the parliament cancelled the vehicles’ procurement.

The parliament has also bowed to public pressure over MPs’ pensions.

ASEAN began as a five-member bloc in 1967 and has gradually expanded, with Cambodia the most recent addition in 1999.

• Washington could apply more banking, oil sanctions, sources say.
• Some US officials say Trump wants Europe to make next move.
• Trump: won’t meet with Putin unless there’s a peace deal.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has prepared additional sanctions it could use to target key areas of Russia’s economy if President Vladimir Putin continues to delay ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine, according to a US official and another person familiar with the matter.

US officials have also told European counterparts that they support the EU using frozen Russian assets to buy US weapons for Kyiv, and Washington has held nascent internal conversations about leveraging Russian assets held in the US to support Ukraine’s war effort, two US officials said.

While it is not clear whether Washington will actually carry out any of those moves in the immediate term, it indicates that the administration has a well-developed toolkit to escalate further after Trump imposed sanctions on Russia on Wednesday for the first time since returning to office in January.

Trump has positioned himself as a global peacemaker, but has admitted that trying to end Russia’s more-than-three-year war in neighbouring Ukraine has proven harder than he had anticipated.

His meeting with Putin in Alaska in August failed to make progress. Trump told reporters in Doha on Saturday that he would not meet with Putin again unless a peace deal appeared likely. “I’m not going to be wasting my time,” Trump said.

European allies — buffeted by Trump’s swings between accommodation and anger toward Putin — hope he will continue to increase pressure on Moscow.

One senior US official told Reuters that he would like to see European nations make the next big Russia move, which could be additional sanctions or tariffs. A separate source with knowledge of internal administration dynamics said Trump was likely to hit pause for a few weeks and gauge Russia’s reaction to Wednesday’s sanctions announcement.

Those sanctions took aim at oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft. The moves spiked oil prices by more than $2 and sent major Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian crude looking for alternatives.

Trump said on Saturday that when he meets with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, China’s purchases of Russian oil may be discussed. But China is cutting back “very substantially” on Russian oil and “India is cutting back completely,” Trump told reporters.

Banking sector, oil, and infrastructure

Some of the additional sanctions prepared by the United States target Russia’s banking sector and the infrastructure used to get oil to market, said a US official and another person familiar with the matter.

Last week, Ukrainian officials proposed new sanctions that the US could levy, said one source with knowledge of those conversations. Their ideas included measures to cut off all Russian banks from the dollar-based system with US counterparts, two sources said. It is not clear, however, whether Ukraine’s specific requests are being seriously considered by US officials.

Some US senators are renewing a push to get a long-stalled bipartisan sanctions bill over the line. The person with knowledge of internal administration dynamics said Trump is open to endorsing the package. The source warned, though, that such an endorsement is unlikely this month.

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said on Friday he believes his country, the United States and Ukraine are close to a diplomatic solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Halyna Yusypiuk, Ukrainian Embassy spokesperson in Washington, said the recent sanctions decision was appreciated, but did not otherwise comment.

“Dismantling Russia’s war machine is the most humane way to bring this war to an end,” Yusypiuk wrote in an email.

A week of whiplash

Trump’s decision to hit Russia with sanctions capped a tumultuous week with respect to the administration’s Ukraine policy.

Trump spoke with Putin last week and then announced the pair planned to meet in Budapest, catching Ukraine off guard.

A day later, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington, where US officials pressed Zelenskiy to give up territory in the Donbas region as part of a lopsided land swap to end the war. Zelenskiy pushed back, and Trump left the meeting with the position that the conflict should be frozen at its frontlines.

Then last weekend, Russia sent a diplomatic note to Washington reiterating previous peace terms. A few days later, Trump told reporters the planned meeting with Putin was off because “it just didn’t feel right to me.”

Speaking to CNN on Friday after arriving in Washington for talks with US officials, Dmitriev said a meeting between Trump and Putin had not been cancelled, as the US president described it, and that the two leaders will likely meet at a later date.

Two US officials argued privately that, in hindsight, Trump’s abortive plan to meet with Putin was likely the fruit of irrational exuberance. After sealing a ceasefire in Gaza, those officials said, Trump overestimated the degree he could use momentum from one diplomatic success to broker another one.

Trump ultimately decided to slap Russia with sanctions during a Wednesday meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a senior White House official said.