(31 October 2025 – South Korea) As the economic and trade landscape within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region continues to evolve rapidly, Citi’s latest research featuring East & Partners analysis sets the scene for the APEC Summit 2025.
The APEC Summit 2025 in South Korea is a critical stage for high-stakes US-China dialogue, as escalating trade tensions, global supply chain realignment and a strategic AI technology race reshape economic dynamics. While APEC comprises 21 economies, 40 percent of the global population, 60 percent of global GDP and almost 50 percent of global trade, since APEC first commenced in 1989 the world has shifted profoundly.
The Citi report “APEC: The New Connections Driving Trade” presents key takeaways including APEC’s robust economic standing globally, geopolitical reordering of trade, emergence of “connector economies”, technology-driven export growth, accelerated digitisation of services trade, substantial AI investment, impact of US trade policy uncertainty and China’s leadership in clean technology.
US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement on several trade matters that were driving their high-stakes trade dispute following their meeting in South Korea. Trump and Xi met on the sidelines of the summit in Busan for what was their first in-person meeting since 2019 during Trump’s first term.
The Chinese government recently moved to implement tougher export controls on rare earth minerals. Xi, in an effort to smooth over trade tensions, agreed to pause China’s export controls on rare earths for one year following the meeting with Trump in South Korea.
Amid the rising level of friction in response to aggressive US trade policy, “connector countries” like Mexico and Vietnam are playing a pivotal role, mitigating the impact on global trade by creating resilient supply chains and facilitating commercial ties between the economic rivals.
Source: GPS Report_APEC.pdf
The summit is a key forum to watch for de-escalation in the US-China trade relationship and the AI technology race, which will influence future global tech infrastructure, investment flows and economic stability.
“There’s definitely been a slowdown of global goods trade. It has come down from the peak in 2011. I do still worry that there’s going to be potential downward pressure, again, if we get a lot of trade-policy intervention on the goods market. But I guess where there’s a little bit more life, and we will see to what extent this will persist, at least when you look at cross-border trade of services, especially digitally delivered services, I think that continues to remain alive and well” commented Citi Global Head of Emerging Markets Economics. Johanna Chua for the E53: APEC at a Crossroad Research @ Citi Podcast.
“If you have a massive supply chain rerouting globally, it’s expensive. If you want that optionality to be able to root your supply chain in multiple different places, it’s going to cost a lot of money. And that’s what we’re seeing countries build out” stated Citi Head of Research, Lucy Baldwin.