MANILA, Nov 15 — A key regional summit opened today in Manila, with Southeast Asian heads of state grappling with the Middle East crisis and their own regional flashpoints and global leaders finding common ground over US President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Trump is scheduled to arrive Tuesday, near the summit’s conclusion, a visit that will include a meeting with the leaders of his fellow Quad countries India, Japan and Australia — the first such sit-down of his second term.
But it was the US leader’s tariff blizzard that Brazil’s newly re-elected President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had on his mind today in Manila.
“Brazil has learned an extraordinary lesson after the US decided to impose tariffs (on other countries),” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.
