In Peru, Trump looms large as Xi and Biden meet alongside APEC leaders

With approval ratings hovering at 4%, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte had been keeping a low profile, with no press appearances for 100+ days and a quiet official calendar to boot. But this week, she flung open Lima’s doors to host some of the world’s most powerful players at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

From 9 to 16 November, world leaders, diplomats, and business execs flocked to Peru (just as it ushered in summer ☀️). As always, Intrigue’s here to give you the top takeaways from the summit —   

1. Leaders’ Machu Picchu Declaration

Usually, the most anticipated outcome from these conferences is the iconic leaders ‘family photo’, which inevitably leads to analysis of which leader stands where, next to whom, and what it all means. The other less spicy outcome is a joint communique, aptly named the Machu Picchu Declaration this year. It contains 19 bullet points that diplomats no doubt spent hours word-smithing, and had some intriguing fine print.

Take for example this quote — “We acknowledge the importance of… predictable trade and investment environment”.  In the era of Biden’s White House and Xi Jinping’s Beijing, maintaining stability in global trade was key. China’s set to host the 2026 APEC, and knows that the world economy will likely look radically different to today’s if Donald Trump lives up to his campaign promise of hitting China with 60% tariffs.

2. CEOs on the margins 

Aside from world leaders, APEC also hosted the CEO Summit, which is usually the more lit lively gathering. Over 1,000 C-suite execs flew into Lima to rub shoulders with government counterparts, including TikTok CEO Shou Chew and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who: 

• ⛏️ Expects more regulation to be rolled back 
• 🤝 Anticipates an impending M&A boom
• 💸 Thinks that “economic power is military power… and some of the recent US leadership has forgotten that.”
• 📚 Recommended the audience read ‘The Art of the Deal’
• 📝 Cited Tony Blair and JFK quotes on the risk of populism and what one can do for their country.

Meanwhile, Chew was upbeat and told the crowd TikTok is working to be a “champion of free speech” and “one of the most trusted companies in the world.” 

3. Xi-Biden Meeting 

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with outgoing US President Joe Biden on Saturday, promising to work with the incoming US administration on a laundry list of thorny issues: cybercrime, counter-narcotics, trade, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia. The two leaders met for about two hours — their first face-to-face in seven months.

Xi, never one to mince words, opened with a pointed message: “Make the wise choice.” He emphasized the need for “major countries” to find a way to coexist.

Biden’s pitch? “Competition, not conflict”, and to keep talking so as to avoid missteps that could push the US-China relationship from competition into conflict. Biden acknowledged that even though he and Xi haven’t always agreed, their discussions have always been “frank” and “candid.”

But there was one topic Washington and Beijing saw eye-to-eye on (at least for now) ….

4. AI on the agenda 

“Constructive dialogue” on artificial intelligence risks has become a fixture on the diplomatic circuit of late, including at APEC. Biden and Xi agreed to work on addressing risks of AI systems and improve international cooperation on AI safety, including on the need to keep humans in the decision-making loop on whether to use nuclear weapons.

This is big because it’s the first time China has formally and publicly committed to this stance, highlighting its worries about the potential dangers of AI in military applications. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described the agreement as “foundational” and a key moment of alignment on global security (for the time being anyway, as Trump’s administration will likely have a different stance on AI safety issues).

5. Status quo on other conflicts? 

And finally, Xi defended China’s position on the war in Ukraine as being “neutral” when Biden pushed Beijing to discourage North Korea’s involvement in the war. President Biden had been a mere 24 hours away from authorising Ukraine to use long-range American weapons inside Russia.

Xi also took the moment to warn the US and its allies in Asia that he would not allow “war and chaos” on the Korean peninsula, saying China would not “sit idly by and watch” if Beijing’s security and core interests were threatened.

And just like that, Biden wrapped one of his last public meetings with his most consequential global counterpart as the world braces itself for the changes ahead.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

Do gatherings like this matter if it’s an outgoing US administration that attends? In short, yes. Both for the optics of diplomatic engagement and the substance of the technical sideline discussions (even if these don’t make the cut for newsworthy content).

But with all that’s already going on globally, many governments and business leaders are feeling anxious about how more impending policy changes from a new US administration might impact global trade.

That’s probably felt more at APEC than anywhere else right now, in part because APEC is a regional economic forum focused on growing interdependence through global (and free) trade. We’ve no doubt that APEC participants would have been glad they had this chance to huddle and find ways to navigate the impending changes.

Also worth noting:

• Xi recently inaugurated a China-built deep-water port in Chancay, Peru, calling the $1.3bn investment a new maritime-land corridor between Latin America and China.
• At APEC, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto offered more incentives to investors as he looks to up investments into his country. This comes just weeks after he banned Apple iPhone 16s from the market for not having 40% of its materials produced in-country.