7 leaders skip ASEAN-US meet amid Trump's absence

MANILA, Philippines — Seven Southeast Asian leaders, including President Rodrigo Duterte, skipped the ASEAN-US Summit in Thailand Monday.

US President Donald Trump did not attend the 35th ASEAN Summit and sent US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and US national security advisor Robert O'Brien instead.

Photos from the side meeting showed that Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. attended the event on behalf of Duterte.

Only three leaders attended the ASEAN-US Summit with O'Brien as Trump's representative — Laos' Thongloun Sisoulith, Thailand's Prayut Chan-O-Cha and Vietnam's Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Foreign ministers of other ASEAN member states attended the meeting on behalf of their heads of state.

Despite Trump's absence, Ross insisted that Washington remains "extremely engaged" in the region.

"We continue to negotiate trade deals with countries in this region," Ross said.

Trump has repeatedly warned of further intervention to protect US businesses, and several Asian nations are waiting to find out if Washington will place them on a watch list of "currency manipulators."

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned that the regional bloc could hit back against any punitive trade measures, but he skirted over specifics.

"We will do exactly what Trump does," he told a business forum ahead of the summit opening, calling the US leader "not a very nice man."

"If you go alone, you will be bullied. We don't want to go into trade war, but sometimes when they do things that are not nice to us, we have to be un-nice to them," he added. — Patricia Lourdes Viray with AFP

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US says 'extremely engaged' in Asia after Trump skips ASEAN meet