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SEOUL: US President Donald Trump is expected to arrive in South Korea on October 29 for the upcoming APEC summit, South Korea’s presidential office said Thursday.
The US president is expected to be “arriving on the 29th,” an official from the office told AFP.
US officials maintain that Trump may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which runs until November 1.
Seoul has also said a meeting on the sidelines between the United States and North Korea “cannot be ruled out.”
South Korean media cited the national security adviser as saying that Trump is expected to stay in the southern city of Gyeongju until October 30.
A meeting with the South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will likely take place around that time, according to the reports.
Last week, Trump threatened to scrap a planned meeting with Xi at the forum, in retaliation for Beijing imposing export curbs on rare-earth technologies.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, told CNBC on Wednesday that Trump still planned to meet Xi.
Trump has also said he hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again, possibly this year, while Pyongyang has said Kim is open to future talks under certain circumstances.
The pair met three times during Trump’s first term, but ultimately failed to secure a lasting agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program.
Since then, Pyongyang has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.
Geopolitical shift
The forum comes against a shifting geopolitical backdrop, with Kim emboldened by the war in Ukraine.
The North Korean leader has secured critical support from Russia after sending thousands of troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.
Last month, Kim appeared alongside Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an elaborate military parade in Beijing.
Pyongyang also showed off its “most powerful” intercontinental ballistic missile at its own parade attended by top officials from Russia and China.
Staging that “massive display of force just before South Korea hosts a major international summit is a calculated move to create anxiety and project strength,” Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Asia Center, told AFP.
“It aims to undermine confidence and highlight the new, harsher strategic reality on the peninsula.”

Montevideo: Uruguay on Wednesday legalized euthanasia, becoming one of the first countries in Latin America and among a dozen worldwide to allow assisted suicide.
The small South American country has a long history of passing socially liberal laws, legalizing marijuana, same-sex marriage and abortion long before most others.
On Wednesday, euthanasia was added to the list with the Senate approving the so-called “Dignified Death” bill.
Twenty out of 31 legislators present voted in favor, passing a law approved by the lower Chamber of Representatives in August.
The vote came after 10 hours of debate on an issue several lawmakers called “the most difficult.”
The discussion was largely respectful and often emotional, though some onlookers watching the debate cried out “murderers” after the vote passed.
“I feel relief and joy,” Florencia Salgueiro told AFP after celebrating in the gallery alongside other euthanasia advocates.
Salgueiro had witnessed her father’s struggle to receive assistance to end his life when ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, made his days unbearable. He died without fulfilling his wish.
Elsewhere in Latin America, courts in Colombia and Ecuador have decriminalized euthanasia without passing laws to legalize the practice, while Cuba allows for terminal patients to refuse being kept alive artificially.
Uruguay’s ruling party, leftist Frente Amplio, was behind the initiative, which was met with fierce opposition mainly from the religious right.
A recent poll showed more than 60 percent of Uruguayans support legal euthanasia, with only 24 percent opposed.
The law allows assisted suicide for adult Uruguayan citizens or residents who are mentally competent and in the terminal stage of an incurable disease that causes them suffering.
Beatriz Gelos, a 71-year-old Uruguayan who has battled neurodegenerative ALS for two decades, told AFP the law was “compassionate, very humane.”
In a wheelchair and speaking with a faltering voice, she said opponents “have no idea what it’s like to live like this.”
Another advocate is Monica Canepa, whose son Pablo, 39, has been paralyzed by an incurable disease.
“Pablo is not living. This is not life,” she told AFP.
Uruguay’s Medical Association has not taken a stance on euthanasia, allowing its doctor members to follow their own conscience.
The Catholic Church, for its part, has expressed “sadness” at the decision.