US President Joe Biden warned of an era of political upheaval Friday as he held his last meeting with key Asia-Pacific allies before Donald Trump’s impending return to power.
“We’ve now reached a moment of significant political change,” Biden said as he met Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the APEC summit in Lima.
Biden said it was likely to be his last meeting with the trilateral group that he has fostered over the past year as a bulwark against North Korea and an increasingly assertive China.
But he added that the partnership was “built to last. That’s my hope and expectation.”
Biden also warned of North Korea’s “dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia,” amid growing concerns about nuclear-armed Pyongyang sending troops to fight Ukraine.
The White House said the three leaders would announce the creation of a secretariat to formalize the alliance launched last year at a summit in Camp David.
“We’ll focus on making sure that we’ve institutionalized the trilateral so that it will be an enduring feature of American policy,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters traveling with Biden on Thursday.
Sullivan said he too expected it to survive Trump’s second term in office.
“We fully expect that it would continue under the next administration — though, of course, they’ll make their own decisions,” he said.
Biden’s trip to the APEC summit in Peru and the G20 summit in Brazil next week has been completely overshadowed by Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election last week.
Trump’s “America First” agenda threatens to disrupt US alliances as it did in his first term, although the Republican’s naming of China hawks in his cabinet means he may still want to rely on Seoul and Tokyo.
Biden is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit on Saturday.