He will cut short his attendance at the ASEAN summit due to the death of Thailand's Queen Mother Sirikit.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul will arrive in Malaysia tonight and attend the opening ceremony of the ASEAN summit on Sunday, the Thai government said, after earlier hinting he might miss the entire event, Reuters reported.
He will then meet Trump to discuss economic issues, security and regional development, before the ceasefire signing ceremony, which will take place earlier than originally planned so he can return to Bangkok tomorrow.
- Trump peacemaker, vol. 2
Trump is due to arrive tomorrow morning on the first stop of his Asia tour and is expected to watch as Cambodia and Thailand sign a broader ceasefire agreement after he helped broker an end to a deadly five-day border conflict in July. Dozens of people have been killed and some 300,000 temporarily displaced in the most intense fighting between the two Southeast Asian neighbors in recent history.
Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met today at the start of a weekend of global diplomacy in Kuala Lumpur, with teams from the United States and China holding trade talks alongside the summit.
It is expected that the summit will insist on trade multilateralism and deeper ties with new partners, as well as the consequences of Trump's global customs offensive, according to Reuters. It was also announced that East Timor, the youngest nation in Asia, will be welcomed as the 11th member of ASEAN.
