Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul will travel to Malaysia to sign a ceasefire agreement with Cambodia, a deal U.S. President Donald Trump is set to witness after withdrawing from the ASEAN Summit due to the death of Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit. The signing, scheduled for Sunday morning, follows a deadly five-day border conflict in July that killed dozens and displaced nearly 300,000 people—the worst fighting between the neighboring countries in recent history.
The ceremony, requested by Anutin, will take place before he returns to Thailand to attend to the Queen Mother’s funeral arrangements. He also announced he would skip the upcoming APEC Summit in South Korea. Meanwhile, ASEAN foreign ministers gathered in Kuala Lumpur to kick off a weekend of diplomacy, focusing on regional stability, trade cooperation, and the inclusion of East Timor as the bloc’s 11th member.
Trump’s presence at the summit highlights renewed U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia. Alongside the main talks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for high-level negotiations aimed at easing tensions after Trump’s threat of new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods, in retaliation for Beijing’s export curbs on rare earth materials.
World leaders including China’s Premier Li Qiang, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, and Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will join Trump in Kuala Lumpur. A potential meeting between Trump and Lula remains unconfirmed, though Lula intends to challenge Washington’s 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports. Trump told reporters he might reconsider those tariffs but ruled out talks with Carney, stating satisfaction with the current U.S.-Canada trade deal.