Key Takeaways:

- South Korea hosted the 2025 APEC summit amid unprecedented political upheaval at home and a disruptive, tariff-driven U.S. trade posture under Trump’s second administration

- Despite tensions, leaders produced the “Gyeongju Declaration,” reaffirming regional cooperation on trade, supply chains, AI governance, and cultural industries—even as energy and WTO language were notably softened 

- The summit highlighted a new reality: Asia-Pacific economies are increasingly coordinating among themselves as U.S. policy becomes less predictable, signaling both resilience and recalibration within the regional order

When the Republic of Korea agreed back in 2015 to host the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, few would have guessed the meeting would take place in a backdrop dominated by concerted efforts by the United States government, under the second presidency of Donald Trump, to disrupt the multilateral system of international trade and impose tariffs on its allies and rivals alike.

Fewer still might have anticipated that South Korea would have to carry out its hosting responsibilities just months after significant political disruption within its constitutional democracy, following the impeachment and removal from office of former president Yoon Suk Yeol after his short-lived martial law decree late last year.

Yet these are the exact circumstances that South Korea encountered this year as its new president, Lee Jae-myung, faced the task of preparing for the APEC summit immediately upon taking office in June.

While the most significant events during this year’s summit involved bilateral relations among the 21 APEC member economies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, the national delegations at the summit also managed to produce a declaration aimed at preserving international cooperation not only on trade but also on a host of other key issues, including the development of artificial intelligence.  

This year’s summit, held in the ancient capital of Gyeongju on October 31 and November 1, centered on the theme “Building a Sustainable Tomorrow,” with three key priorities – connect, innovate, prosper – emphasized in the Gyeongju Declaration released on November 1.  

Although the declaration stopped short of giving a customary nod to the World Trade Organization – apparently because of the Trump administration’s opposition to the multilateral trading system – it nevertheless affirmed that “robust trade and investment are vital to the growth and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, and (APEC members) remain committed to deepening economic cooperation to navigate the evolving global environment.”

Similar to their counterparts in other regions of the world, most notably Europe, leaders of the APEC economies that historically have maintained strong relationships with the United States are now keen to bolster cooperation with their regional partners, given the current states of uncertainty in United States economic policy and foreign policy under Trump.  

Short of re-affirming a globally integrated trade system, leaders at the summit pledged to “advance economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region in a manner that is market-driven, including through the work on the (long term goal of a) Free Trade Area.”  

Leaders at APEC also pledged to boost connectively in supply chain networks across the region, reflecting ongoing efforts to address deficiencies and vulnerabilities that became all too apparent at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking ahead to the future, this year’s APEC summit seemed pivotal in shifting attention away from the historic positioning of the Asia-Pacific region as a global manufacturing hub and toward the continued evolution of “cultural and creative industries” as an increasingly important engine for regional economic growth.  

South Korea, as the host country, was especially well poised to set this tone, given the extent that its cultural appeal and “soft power” have strengthened in recent years, thanks to longstanding campaigns and investments raising the profile of its television dramas, films and cuisine around the world.

With regard to looming challenges posed by artificial intelligence, leaders in Gyeongju agreed to set up an “Asia-Pacific AI Center” with the agenda of shaping a strategy for the region to clarify common standards and follow best practices aimed at maximizing benefits and minimize social costs and harms.  It marked the first time the United States and China entered into an international summit-level agreement on AI cooperation.

Leaders also agreed in general terms to work together on the common challenges that go with rapidly aging societies across the region.  It remains to be seen how these kinds of general good intentions will translate into specific initiatives in the years to come.

Despite the elevation of sustainability as a theme for this year’s APEC summit, prospects for renewable energy ended up taking a back seat in the declaration, which instead emphasized the region’s high and ever-increasing demands for energy, the need for continued improvements to national power grids, and continued dependence on conventional energy sources such as natural gas.  This apparent concession, too, might reflect pressure behind the scenes from the Trump administration, which is doubling down on fossil fuels rather than working to expedite a transition to green energy in response to the accelerating climate crisis.  

It is possible that renewable energy will take a higher profile at next year’s APEC summit in China, which is currently the world’s the world’s largest polluter but emerging as a key driving force of solar and wind power.

Several leaders of APEC member economies took the opportunity at the summit to hold meetings with each other and, most notably, with Trump, when he arrived to address a business summit but did not stay for the full summit itself. 

Trump and Lee were able to iron out key sticking points on revised terms of trade that still leave many South Korean exports to the United States facing higher tariffs (15 percent) than the terms of the former Korea-US Free Trade Agreement but lower than the 25 percent Trump initially proposed.  South Korea also negotiated a gradual phasing-in of its promised $350 billion investment into the United States (a combination of cash infusions and cooperation on shipbuilding) with provisions aimed at protecting its weakening currency from further devaluation.  The two leaders also agreed in principle for South Korea to build nuclear powered submarine in partnership with the United States, though many sensitive details on that prospect have yet to be worked out.

Trump also held a high-profile meeting on the sidelines of the summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping to settle a series of disputes that Trump initiated earlier this year on trade, and he visited Tokyo prior to South Korea to meet Japan’s new prime minister, Sanai Takaichi, who made her international debut at APEC.  Lee also held his first summit meetings as president with Xi and Takaichi and emerged from both conversations promising to maintain smooth relations with these crucial neighboring countries that have often run into tension.

Amid much speculation that Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might find a way to meet at the border between South Korea and North Korea and revive the diplomacy between them that stalled in 2019, Kim apparently decided to hold back for now even as Trump en route to Asia went out of his way to express enthusiasm for meeting with Kim.

Since Kim has recently declared that United States acceptance of its nuclear weapons program must be a precondition for future talks – while the stated aim of the earlier round of Trump-Kim summitry was to find a way toward North Korea’s denuclearization – it seems the two sides simply couldn’t find enough of a common basis to bring their leaders together for now.   Kim has also spent much of the past five years focusing mainly on relations with China and Russia, which North Korea is aiding in its war against Ukraine.

While Trump’s early departure from the APEC summit seemed to signal a diminished commitment from the United States to international organizations, it gave the region’s leaders an opportunity to interact with him first and then strategize with each other after he left about how to go forward collectively in a world in which the United States government, at least for the moment, has veered away from the rules-based international order it worked hard to create and maintain following the end of World War II in 1945.

Also, as a silver lining, the 2025 summit yielded more results than APEC summits in Trump’s first presidency when similar disagreements over the positioning of the World Trade Organization left national leaders unable to produce a declaration at all.

Although this year’s declaration toned down its language on trade and environmental sustainability, APEC in Gyeongju managed to underscore that the larger endeavor of international cooperation across the wider Asia-Pacific region remains intact and resilient.