LIMA - US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping arrive Thursday in Lima for an Asia-Pacific summit overshadowed by the prospect of a world embroiled in trade wars under Donald Trump.
Saturday's face-to-face will likely be the last meeting between the sitting leaders of the world's largest economies before Biden hands the reins back to Trump, who has signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing for his second term in the White House.
Biden and Xi will likely "take stock of efforts to responsibly manage competition," a senior US administration official told reporters Wednesday ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
APEC, created in 1989 with the goal of regional trade liberalization, brings together 21 economies that jointly represent about 60 percent of world GDP and over 40 percent of global commerce.
The summit program was to focus on trade and investment for inclusive growth and innovation for its members' common good.
But uncertainty over Trump's next moves now clouds the agenda -- as it does for the COP29 climate talks under way in Azerbaijan, and a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
"All that... the APEC leaders and G20 leaders will be talking about is the one world leader who is not there -– and that is Donald Trump," Victor Cha of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said this week.
The summits will be "about one thing," he told reporters in Washington: "What to expect from the next Trump administration on trade, alliances."
Xi and Biden will meet on the second and final day of the summit that will also bring together leaders and senior officials from Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and Indonesia, among others.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin will not attend.
On Thursday, ministers will set the tone for the heads-of-state summit with a meeting of their own.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken -- whom Trump announced Wednesday he will replace with China hawk Marco Rubio -- will attend the ministerial-level talks along with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.