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The White House has indefinitely postponed a special summit with leaders from across Southeast Asia that was initially scheduled for next week, according to four sources familiar with the schedule change.
The gathering with the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was set to take place on Monday and Tuesday at the White House, and it was meant to “demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment” to a region that is critical to its commercial and security interests in Asia, the White House said in late February.
On Friday, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said in a statement to POLITICO that, "The President looks forward to welcoming the ASEAN leaders to Washington, DC for a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. To ensure invited ASEAN leaders can all participate, we are working closely with ASEAN partners to identify appropriate dates for this meeting."
President Joe Biden will instead meet on Tuesday with Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, to discuss both U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific region, such as supply chains and maritime security, as well as the bloody conflict in Ukraine.
Biden has spent the past month increasingly focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine; he returns from a four-day trip to Brussels and Warsaw on Saturday, where the war and subsequent sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin have been top of his agenda.
The month-long conflict in Eastern Europe has injected a new urgency into U.S. efforts to reinvigorate old alliances and cultivate new ones, including in the Asia-Pacific. But it has also underscored, yet again, how difficult it is to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from the conflicts of the 20th century in Europe and the Middle East, and toward the biggest global challenge of this century: an increasingly aggressive China.
Date in flux: On Feb. 28, the White House released a statement from press secretary Jen Psaki saying the administration was “proud to announce” the “historic” ASEAN summit would take place on March 28 and 29.
But the administration has been less definitive in recent weeks. A U.S. official said on March 10 that the administration was working with ASEAN leaders to set a “formal date” for the gathering, but said “it has not been postponed.” Asked at a March 17 press briefing about the status of the summit, Psaki said only that the White House was “working through the schedules of a number of leaders, so that's always a challenge and a factor.”
The possibility of postponing the gathering of ASEAN leaders was first raised earlier this month when Cambodia's foreign minister told Reuters that some Southeast Asian leaders could not travel to Washington on the dates the White House had announced. Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are all members of the association.
Conflicting schedules: Schedule conflicts do appear to be the cause of the delay, as neither the Biden administration or ASEAN wanted to leave out key members, people with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.
“It seems that the event is experiencing scheduling turbulence, with more than one of the key ASEAN members unable to move or cancel pre-existing commitments on dates that the USA has proposed,” said Kurt Tong, a partner at The Asia Group. “It is challenging given the long ten-member ASEAN roster and that organization’s strong desire for inclusiveness.”
A critical region: The White House has repeatedly declared that Southeast Asia is a central focus of its foreign policy efforts, particularly as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter China’s rising global influence.
Vice President Kamala Harris carried that message to Vietnam and Singapore during a weeklong trip in August. And a string of key Cabinet officials, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, made visits to the region in the administration’s first year.
Biden himself participated in a virtual summit with ASEAN leaders in October. At that meeting, Biden first announced his administration's intention to craft an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that would deepen U.S. trade and investment ties in the region, with an eye towards China.
The Commerce Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are now seeking public comment on what the framework should entail. The administration has already said it will not include market access provisions found in typical trade deals, which many partners in the region are seeking, and instead focus on issues like supply chain resiliency, decarbonization and infrastructure and clean energy.
The war in Ukraine has also contributed to delays in Biden administration decisions on imposing new tariffs on China, as POLITICO reported last week.
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