The annual APEC summit got under way in Lima just over a week after Trump's surprise victory dashed hopes of the largest-ever U.S.-proposed trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), coming to fruition.
President Barack Obama championed the TPP as a way to counter China's rise, but his administration has now stopped trying to win congressional approval for the deal, which was signed by 12 economies in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, excluding China. Without U.S. approval the agreement as currently negotiated cannot be implemented.
Throughout his campaign, Trump strongly criticized U.S. free-trade deals, vowing to pull the world's biggest economy out of the TPP and promising to impose tariffs on imports from trade partners China and Mexico.
China's Xi is selling an alternate vision for regional trade by promoting the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which as it stands excludes the Americas.
