What we covered here
• President Donald Trump has left Malaysia, completing the first leg of his diplomacy tour in Asia, and is now on his way to Japan, where he will meet the country’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, on Tuesday.
• In Malaysia, Trump joined the signing of a peace declaration between Thailand and Cambodia. And US trade negotiators reached the framework of a trade deal with China, easing tensions before Trump’s high-stakes meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week.
• Back in Washington, the federal government shutdown drags on, and some lawmakers are expressing alarm about Trump’s expanding military campaign against alleged drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean.
Our live coverage has moved here.
Lula says he’s "convinced" Brazil will strike a trade deal with the US soon
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Monday that he was “convinced” his country would soon strike a trade deal with the United States, following a “very good” meeting with President Donald Trump.
The leaders met Sunday on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, which Trump attended as part of a diplomatic tour that includes stops to Japan and South Korea.
The current US tariffs on imports from Brazil are “baseless” and were made using “wrong information about Brazil,” Lula said in a news conference on Monday. He said the meeting was “friendly” and gave him a “very good impression that soon, we will not have any more issues between the US and Brazil.”
Lula added that he had handed Trump a written agenda of the issues he wanted to discuss, and that the two heads of state respect each other.
The meeting signaled a thaw in relations following a major rift between the US and Brazil earlier this year.
Trump imposed a whopping 50% tariff on Brazil on August 1 after threatening the tariffs if Brazil did not end its trial against its right-wing former president, and Trump ally, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was subsequently convicted of plotting a coup and sentenced to over 27 years in prison.
Trump, too, softened his tone during the bilateral meeting.
Trump congratulates Argentina's Milei on midterm elections triumph
President Donald Trump has offered his congratulations to his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, after his libertarian party claimed a strong victory in the country’s midterm elections.
This month, the US offered Argentina a $20 billion bailout, in the form of a currency swap, to help the country avoid financial collapse. But after announcing the deal, Trump made clear the offer was conditional and was based on Milei, a close Trump ally, remaining in power.
