KUALA LUMPUR: President Donald Trump may be coming to Malaysia to attend the 47th Asean Summit in October.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said discussions are underway.
“It’s possible. Yes. We are working on getting a date for that (Asean-US Special Summit),” he said when met by reporters at the sidelines of the 58th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM).
Malaysia is Asean Chair for this year.
On the US tariff, Rubio said many Asean countries are going to have new tariff rates that are actually better than some countries in other parts of the world.
“The door always remains open to adjustments if agreements can be reached.
“We are also actively in conversations with multiple countries that are represented here on ways to make even further progress.
“But the market demands certainty and we need to let everyone know that the baseline tariff is starting Aug 1,” he said.
Rubio said tariff talks, including one with Japan to be held next week, are taking place.
He gave his assurance that these are important and comprehensive economic and defence cooperation partnerships that the United States will never abandon.
“If you look at the demographics of South-East Asia, this is the youngest part of the world.
“You are about to see enormous growth in the labour pool. This is an exciting and extraordinary historical time,” he said.
He said the US delegation is present at the AMM to express appreciation to the region.
“We spent decades building these relationships.
“Not only are we not going to walk away from them; we seek to expand them and build upon them,” Rubio added.
On another matter, he said a new approach to the Ukraine conflict, proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, will be brought to the US president for consideration.
However, he cautioned that this may not automatically lead to peace right away.
“But it could potentially open the door to a path towards peace,” he said.
Rubio also said no dialogue or summit has been scheduled between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We are going to continue engaging with the Russian side any time there is an opportunity.
“At the end of the day, Russia and the United States still have to have a relationship.
“These are two important countries in the world and we’re going to continue engage and talk.
“We want to see if there are opportunities to make progress in peace. We want to be pursuing that,” he said.
