Trump’s 5-Nation Asia Trip In November: What To Expect

President Donald Trump will be traveling to five nations in the Asia-Pacific region in November, the White House announced Friday. Accompanied by his wife Melania, Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Nov. 3-14.

The trip is expected to be dominated by concerns over North Korea and country’s nuclear threat. Trump has sparred with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, calling him a “rocket man” on a suicide mission, and warned that the East Asian country would face total devastation if it threatened the United States. Kim has referred to Trump as “mentally deranged.”

In announcing the trip, the White House said: “The president’s engagements will strengthen the international resolve to confront the North Korean threat and ensure the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

The trip will include two major summits — the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations conclave in the Philippines. Trump’s attendance at the latter was in some doubt, owing to some outbursts against him by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

However, Reuters reported a U.S. official said Trump was persuaded to attend the Manila summit by Asian leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, to portray a show of unity with key Asian allies.

Trump, who routinely said during his presidential campaign he would re-negotiate and get better trade deals for the country, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal Jan. 23, raising questions about his commitment to the region.

However, visits that followed by senior officials, including the secretaries of state, defense and commerce, and his own upcoming trip seemed to have quelled some of those doubts.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said U.S. ties with its former colony were too strong to not recover from disagreements and that Duterte was looking forward to meeting Trump.

Trump’s trip to China can be seen as reciprocation to President Xi Jinping’s trip to the U.S. in April. Efforts by Trump to apply pressure on China to rein in North Korea have seen little success, although he thanked Xi again Tuesday for his efforts.

At a news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Trump said: “I applaud China for breaking off all banking relationships with North Korea — something that people would have thought unthinkable even two months ago. I want to thank President Xi.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to China’s top diplomat State Councilor Yang Jiechi in Beijing on Saturday and said the two presidents had a “very regular and close working relationship.”

Yang, for his part, said the November visit was of extreme importance.

“Let us concentrate on cooperation and properly manage our differences in a spirit of mutual respect and mutual benefit,” he told Tillerson.

Trump’s national security team is reviewing U.S. strategy with regards to countering Chinese trade practices and opening up market access, according to a senior administration official.

The U.S. would also like to address concerns of Chinese entities behind the theft of intellectual property and cyberattacks.

As a prelude to his trip, Trump met Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong, who was attending the inaugural dialogue on people-to-people ties in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Bloomberg reported.