Prime Minister Christopher Luxon flew into Busan, South Korea for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit on Wednesday morning, with US President Donald Trump also soon to be in town.
No official bilateral meeting between the pair has been publicly scheduled, but they could come face-to-face at a dinner being hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung later tonight.
Luxon and Trump are yet to meet in person. The pair previously spoke on the phone following the US President’s re-election last November.
They had a “good connection” during that phone call, Luxon told the Herald last week, and he believed any meeting would have a focus on “building the relationship”.
“We will have different views on trade, as we’ve articulated pretty well into their system. We’ll see how it goes, but if it happens, great, and if it doesn’t, you know, so be it as well.”
Luxon’s arrival into Busan was unceremonious, with no red carpet or ceremonial guard, unlike when the Prime Minister arrived in Malaysia for the East Asia Summit (EAS) on Sunday.
The New Zealand delegation then travelled north of Busan to the city of Gyeongju, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) conference is taking place.
Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom and is considered a “museum without walls”, given its heritage.
Before the dinner, Luxon is expected to participate in a “fireside chat” at an Apec CEO summit. He will be moderated by television host Tian Wei from the Chinese state broadcaster, CGTN.
The CEO summit is taking place over four days, with Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, Amazon Web Services chief exeuctive Matt Garman and OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann among those speaking.
Trump will be delivering a keynote address at the CEO summit on Wednesday, but the New Zealand Prime Minister isn’t planning to be at that at this stage.
Also expected at Apec is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Australia’s Anthony Albanese, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and others from the Asia-Pacific.
The highly anticipated meeting between Trump and Xi is expected on Thursday. The leaders of two of the world’s superpowers are likely to focus their discussions on their current trade tensions.
Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports from November 1 following a move by Beijing to place restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals, which are critical for their use in technologies like smartphones.
The US President, who was also briefly in Malaysia this week, has expressed optimism about coming to some deal with Xi. A framework that would lead China to delay implementing its controls on the minerals and avert the Trump tariffs is said to have been developed already.
Speaking to reporters prior to leaving Malaysia, Luxon said Apec would be “economics-focused”.
“A lot of it will be about us making the case very strongly for the rules-based system and why we want to make our multilateral trading relationships work,” he said.
Luxon has previously told the Herald that tariffs, such as those imposed by Trump earlier this year, were not “the way to go forward as a free-trading, rules-based country”.
However, he has also acknowledged Trump was “pretty crystal clear” during his election campaign that he intended to go down that route.
New Zealand was given a base 15% tariff rate by the US, a lot lower than many Asian nations. Luxon said this week that a trade deal with the US during the Asian tour was highly unlikely.
The Prime Minister has been pushing further co-operation between members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the European Union (EU) and the Association of South-East Asia Nations (Asean).
“We need a trading platform and a dialogue, which we will have in place before the end of the year in both cases, in order to have good discussions about trade and economics and, more importantly, to reaffirm that rules-based system,” Luxon told the Herald.
Luxon also said on Tuesday that there would be an upgrade to New Zealand’s trading relationship with South Korea this week.
“It’s also a great way to meet a lot of leaders through a series of bilaterals, through the informal engagements, to pick up the one or two issues we might have in our bilateral relationships, to talk through or also to build relationships so that you’ve actually got them when you need them.”
On Tuesday night (NZT), Luxon also attended the announcement by Malaysia’s Yinson Renewables group that it would be investing in New Zealand with a pipeline of renewable energy projects expected to total about a gigawatt (1GW) of renewable energy.
It has already been developing wind projects in New Zealand over the past four years.
“We are very pleased to see Yinson’s investments in New Zealand, establishing their presence as a key contributor to our infrastructure development,” Benny Goodman, general manager of Invest New Zealand, which has been supporting the group, said.
“They combine their expertise in [the] renewable energy sector with local partners and communities to ensure smooth progression of their investment plans.”
Malaysia’s infrastructure conglomerate, YTL Corporation Berhad, also confirmed a $160 million deal for the 225-room Hotel Indigo in Auckland. It received Overseas Investment Office consent in September.
Luxon said these investments “demonstrate that New Zealand is seen as a credible investment destination by high-quality global investors, and it is a message I deliver in parallel to the political relationship building on my trips overseas”.
Jamie Ensor is a senior political reporter for NZ Herald travelling with the Prime Minister in Asia this week.