US and China set to face off at Malaysia-chaired Asia-Pacific summit
Media in host country Malaysia report he will, citing US officials.
Trump plans to participate in part of the discussions, a high-ranking US government official said late on Thursday. Meanwhile his official schedule said that he would take part in the virtual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting from the White House.
Should his legal challenges to the outcome of the recent US presidential election fail, the summit could be Trump's last chance to push back at Chinese President Xi Jinping, who told a summit side event on Thursday of China's "major strategic achievement" to both "contain the virus and speedily bring production and life back to normal."
Trump has blamed Beijing for what he has repeatedly termed "the Chinese virus," which according to official data has infected 11.5 million Americans and led to more than 250,000 deaths - the most of any country.
Among the 21 APEC leaders slated to take part via video link are Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Japan's new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga.
Trump last attended an APEC summit in 2017, near the end of his first year in office. The US was represented at Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led summits last weekend by Trump's National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien - leaving the US-ASEAN Business Council "deeply disappointed" that a Cabinet member did not take part.
The summits culminated in the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) by the 10 ASEAN member-states, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
The deal has been labelled "the world's biggest trade pact" - despite the absence of the world's biggest economy, the US.
Without mentioning the US, which under Trump has sought to push back against "unfair" terms of trade, Xi told the APEC CEO Dialogues on Thursday that Beijing will eschew "decoupling" and seek "high-standard free trade agreements with more countries."
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, which has close ties with both China and the US, told the CEO Dialogues on Thursday that the US prefers "to deal with issues bilaterally" and that the Trump administration sees trade as a "win-lose proposition."
The 2019 APEC summit was cancelled due to street protests in host nation Chile. In 2018, tensions between China and the US, which was represented by Vice President Mike Pence, prevented the bloc from issuing a final communique for the first time since it began meeting in 1989.
