President Trump is heading to Asia on Friday evening at a moment of turmoil at home: He has deployed an aircraft carrier to Latin America, cut off trade talks with Canada, razed the East Wing of the White House, cheered on the closure of the federal government and sent the National Guard to several American cities.
But for the next six days, Mr. Trump is putting down his sledgehammer and embarking on a diplomatic tour, testing his role as a statesman and negotiator as he pursues a trade deal with China to end a dispute that has harmed both economies.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to travel through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea before holding a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping, the president of China, on Thursday just before heading home and greeting trick-or-treaters at the White House. It is unusual for a president to leave the country on a multination tour of the world during a government shutdown.
The trip is heavy with ceremonial appearances but also negotiations that will have consequences for the global economy. It comes as Asian allies of the United States are reeling from Mr. Trump’s tariff policies and Beijing, Washington’s biggest global economic competitor, has shown no sign of giving up its side of an escalatory trade war.
Previewing the trip on Friday, senior White House officials said Mr. Trump was expected to strike “tough trade deals” and critical mineral agreements and address actions that China has taken that affect the global economy.
That Mr. Trump is starting his trip meeting with allies first is symbolic, experts say, but how he emerges from the meeting with Mr. Xi will be consequential.
“These kinds of meetings become metaphors for the U.S.-China trajectory, and the imagery around them and the deals that are done at them become leading indicators of where the world order is going,” said Rush Doshi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Georgetown University.
Since Mr. Trump began his second term, he has added a 55 percent tariff on imports from China, with duties on some goods much higher. Mr. Xi has not been cowed by Mr. Trump’s aggression. The Chinese government has responded with tariffs on American products, including soybeans, resulting in a significant loss of business for American farmers.
China has also placed new restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals, which angered Mr. Trump to the point that he threatened to not meet with Mr. Xi. The president this week signed a strategic agreement with Australia to invest billions of dollars to develop mineral supplies in hopes of breaking Beijing’s grip on the mining sector.
This week, the Trump administration offered another telling clue about how it wants to position the president as he heads into that meeting: Officials plan to investigate whether Beijing held up its end of a trade deal signed during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Mr. Trump noted this week that the tariff against China was set to rise to 157 percent on Nov. 1, just days after he and Mr. Xi are scheduled to meet. “We don’t want that,” he said, “because it’s not sustainable for them.”
If Mr. Trump plays the role of an enforcer, using the investigation as leverage, the result could be more tariffs against Chinese goods if he does not get what he wants.
“President Trump has been more restrained on China than many observers expected from him, but if the China meeting does not go well, that could change quickly,” said Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “And he prefers acting on his own instinct in unpredictable ways, so the prospect of something dramatic happening seems higher than normal.”
The sit-down will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders during Mr. Trump’s second term and the first time they have seen each other since 2019. In recent months, Mr. Trump has lashed out at Mr. Xi over everything from “hostile” trade policies to the Chinese president’s decision to play host to other authoritarians during a lavish military parade.
The parade last month was attended by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and it got Mr. Trump’s attention.
“May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Throughout the week, Mr. Trump appeared to be cycling through a range of emotions before his meeting with Mr. Xi.
“I want to be good to China,” he said on Monday. “I love my relationship with President Xi. We have a great relationship.”
By Tuesday, Mr. Trump tried to temper expectations about the outcome of the meeting, saying that he thought they would have a “very successful meeting” and that “certainly, there are a lot of people that are waiting for it.”
He added: “Maybe it won’t happen. Things can happen where, for instance, maybe somebody will say, ‘I don’t want to meet, it’s too nasty.’ But it’s really not nasty, it’s just business.”
On Thursday, he was back to being sanguine: “I think we’re going to come out very well, and everyone’s going to be very happy.”
Mr. Trump said this week that trade would not be the only topic of discussion. He accused China of smuggling fentanyl through Venezuela, whose drug trade Mr. Trump has targeted with a series of legally dubious strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
“The first question I’m going to be asking him is on fentanyl,” Mr. Trump said.
Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, said that should Mr. Trump come away from the meeting with an agreement on curbing fentanyl, a key concern for Americans, it would be a clear win. But he said that other parts of Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda, which are creating a series of conflicts at home, could hurt him.
“The credibility of any U.S. foreign policy initiative, by Trump or any president, is seriously undermined by the U.S.’s own internal political crisis, which the whole world can see,” Mr. Duss said. “By actively deepening that crisis with his blatantly authoritarian moves, Trump is eroding a key source of American strength. He’s essentially throwing away some very important cards.”
As Mr. Trump travels through Asia, other leaders will be seeking assurances from him that the United States will remain a reliable security partner that can help keep China’s aggression at bay and protect against other looming threats, like an agitated North Korea. (The North Koreans test-fired ballistic missiles a few days before Mr. Trump’s arrival.)
“The region wants to see if the president is committed to a long-term U.S. role — militarily, economically, diplomatically and otherwise — in the region, or if his policy is essentially about commercial deals that benefit the United States,” said Richard Fontaine, the chief executive at the Center for a New American Security, who co-wrote a book about the rise of Chinese power. “As China grows in assertiveness, this is moving from a question to a concern.”
In Malaysia, Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet with the country’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, who has sought a trade deal with Mr. Trump over tariffs. He is also scheduled to preside over a “significant peace agreement,” officials said.
Mr. Trump will travel from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo on Monday and is expected to meet with Sanae Takaichi, who won an election on Tuesday to become Japan’s prime minister. Ms. Takaichi, the first woman to be elected to the role, is a protégée of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who was assassinated in 2022.
Like her mentor, Ms. Takaichi has a political outlook that is similar to Mr. Trump’s. She has been hawkish about countering China’s aggression in the region, and has promised to tamp down on immigration and tourism.
While Mr. Trump is chasing a deal with China, Ms. Takaichi will be seeking her own assurances from Mr. Trump. His tariff policies have sent shock waves through the Japanese economy and raised concerns about the reliability of American security guarantees in the region. The president will no doubt seek a firm Japanese commitment on an earlier agreement to invest $550 billion into the United States.
R. Nicholas Burns, the top U.S. diplomat in Beijing under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said that Mr. Trump was right to oppose unfair trade practices by the Chinese against American firms. But he called Mr. Trump’s tariffs on allies — including Japan and South Korea — a “major miscalculation.”
“U.S. tariffs against our allies have made them less inclined to work with us as a united front to push back against the Chinese,” Mr. Burns said.
Unlike during his first term, Mr. Trump has not laid out a clear strategy for dealing with China other than whiplash trade policies.
But on other matters of importance to U.S. allies in the region, the president has been elusive. For example, Mr. Trump said this week that he did not believe China wanted to invade Taiwan. But senior White House officials did not have a response to how Mr. Trump may respond should Mr. Xi raise the issue of Taiwan’s independence. Officials previewing the trip on Friday stressed that Mr. Trump wanted to keep the discussions focused on trade.
“What’s at stake is nothing less than the Asian economic and security order, both of which President Trump has destabilized with his randomly destructive tariff impositions and calling into question American reliability as a security partner to its allies,” said Kori Schake, a former defense official in the George W. Bush administration who directs foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Allies are genuinely and rightly concerned Trump is so thirsty for a U.S.-China deal that he’ll trade the security and prosperity of our allies and even our own country to get it.”
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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