South Korea this week will host leaders from major Pacific Rim economies, including the United States, China and Japan, for an annual summit that has long championed free trade.

But this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings come as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to send shock waves around the world with his sweeping tariffs and other measures upending the postwar global trade order, unsettling both allies and rivals.

The multilateral gathering in Gyeongju is expected to be overshadowed by a sideline event — a face-to-face meeting on Thursday between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — as their intensifying trade war leaves the South Korean hosts in a difficult balancing act.

Established in 1989 as a 12-member forum to promote free trade and economic cooperation, APEC now has 21 members, including the United States, South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and Russia.

The members wield significant collective weight, accounting for 37% of the world’s population and more than half of global trade in goods as of 2024, according to South Korean government data.

Each year, one of APEC’s members hosts the annual leaders’ meeting, serving as its chair.

A flurry of high-level bilateral meetings typically take place on the sidelines of APEC’s main conference, underscoring the forum’s role as a platform for dialogue and cooperation.

APEC has a narrow focus limited to trade and economic issues and has no military component.

Still, experts say APEC’s strength is its ability to bring together countries that might otherwise compete aggressively or even clash, enabling collaboration on major initiatives, though without binding agreements.

In the buildup to the summit, members hold a series of ministerial and other meetings to discuss practical cooperation on various issues, and economists have credited the forum with helping reduce tariffs and other trade barriers in past years.

Having last chaired APEC in 2005, during the height of postwar globalization, South Korea now faces a far trickier challenge as host, navigating a trade landscape transformed in the months since Trump returned to the White House.

Long shaped by the United States and its allies promoting free trade and multilateralism, the forum now faces a stark contrast under Trump, whose steep tariffs and unilateral trade measures have shaken its closest allies.

The situation is likely to force APEC’s pro-American members — particularly host South Korea — into a delicate balancing act, calibrating their diplomatic and public messages to advocate free trade without alienating Washington, while trying to prevent China from seizing the stage as a self-styled defender of global order, Park said.

The main event will likely be Thursday’s bilateral in Busan between Trump and Xi, their first since the U.S. president began his second term.

Trump and Xi in recent months have been locked in an escalating trade war, with Washington imposing high tariffs and tightened technology controls and China retaliating with curbs on rare earth shipments, one of its key sources of leverage.

Trump's meeting with Xi will come after his bilateral talks with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Gyeongju on Wednesday.

AP video shot by: Yong Ho Kim