Hosting the Gyeongju APEC Summit and Korea’s Role

LEE Sang-Hyun

Principal Fellow, Sejong Institute

Hosting the 2025 APEC Summit in Gyeongju

The 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit will convene in Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, from October 31 to November 1. This marks the first occasion in two decades—since the 2005 Busan Summit—that the Republic of Korea hosts an APEC meeting as chair economy. Under the overarching theme “Building a Sustainable Tomorrow,” the summit will center on the core values of Connect, Innovate, and Prosper.

The 2025 APEC Summit assumes particular significance as it unfolds amid heightened geopolitical and geoeconomic volatility. Bringing together 21 member economies that collectively represent a substantial share of global output, the meeting seeks to chart a path toward shared prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Analysts are watching closely to see whether this summit can rekindle the spirit of multilateral cooperation—eroded in recent years by the turbulence of tariff wars and great-power rivalry.

Among the summit’s principal themes, Connectivity aims to revitalize regional trade and investment and to strengthen physical, institutional, and human linkages. Innovation underscores bridging the digital divide, promoting cross-border cooperation in artificial intelligence, and nurturing the Asia-Pacific as a digital powerhouse. Prosperity highlights sustainable and inclusive growth through collective responses to transnational challenges such as energy security, food security, and demographic transformation.

Can the Gyeongju APEC Summit reignite the flame of multilateral cooperation and reaffirm a rules-based international order in an increasingly fragmented world? The gravest threat to that order today is not posed by China, Russia, or North Korea—but by the United States itself. The resurgence of America First under a second Trump administration has injected unprecedented uncertainty and confrontation into the international system.

Historically, as the architect and guardian of the post-World War II rules-based order, the United States provided the public goods essential to global stability—upholding collective security commitments, promoting free trade, and sustaining open commerce.

Today, however, Washington appears to be relinquishing that role, evolving into a narrowly self-interested power that prioritizes short-term national advantage over global leadership. In this emerging environment, global governance anchored in international institutions is receding, supplanted by a transactional politics of power and interest.

The Advent of a Post-Liberal International Order

The primary driver of this structural transformation is the United States itself—more precisely, President Trump and the political movement surrounding Make America Great Again (MAGA). Since the twentieth century, the United States has defined itself as a benign hegemon guided by the principles of liberal internationalism. In the current post-unipolar era, that self-conception has shifted toward an illiberal, coercive hegemon—or even a conventionally self-interested great power.

What may appear as policy incoherence under Trump is, in fact, a deliberate and systematic attempt to reshape both domestic and international orders. Domestically, the administration seeks to recalibrate the values and norms at the heart of the American polity, turning inward toward a more authoritarian and nativist identity.

Internationally, it aims to redefine America’s role—not as the world’s policeman, but as a sovereign actor unbound by multilateral constraints. The animating logic of America First holds that Washington’s traditional commitments to global institutions have yielded diminishing returns, inviting free-riding and disrespect from allies.

Consequently, the United States is retreating from its position as guarantor of a rules-based economic and security order. It now embraces a transactional diplomacy in which coercion replaces cooperation and narrowly defined national interests eclipse collective values. On the security front, this translates into reduced defense commitments and greater burden-sharing demands on allies. Simultaneously, Washington is disengaging from the very multilateral institutions that long sustained the liberal order.

This redefinition of American identity reverberates globally. The post-1945 international system—of the United States, by the United States, and for the United States—is now giving way to a fragmented, multipolar configuration. The liberal order dominated by the West is in retreat, yielding to a new era in which material power and strategic leverage outweigh norms, institutions, and rules. The resulting vacuum is likely to be filled by a re-emergent multipolar balance—what some have termed Yalta 2.0—and the return of great-power spheres of influence.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stands as a stark symbol of this erosion. The inability of Western powers to deter or decisively respond to Moscow’s aggression underscores the waning deterrent power of the rules-based order. Equally destabilizing are the strains in transatlantic relations and Washington’s growing detachment from its alliance network—once a cornerstone of American primacy.

The decline of the liberal trading regime further illustrates this unraveling. The Trump administration’s indiscriminate tariff wars have disrupted global value chains and undermined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord envisions sustaining the dollar’s dominance while keeping it weak to bolster exports—reflecting a broader philosophy that national security and trade are inseparable, and that America’s security umbrella must yield tangible compensation.

The symbolic end of the WTO-centered free trade system was declared by U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer in a New York Times op-ed, asserting that reciprocal tariffs would “restore fairness” to American trade. In doing so, the administration effectively renounced the Bretton Woods tradition of multilateralism that the United States itself had once championed.

Korea’s Role

The 2025 APEC Summit convenes at a pivotal juncture for the international system—one characterized by the disintegration of multilateral cooperation and the re-emergence of great-power rivalry. As host, the Republic of Korea has been crafting deliverables that can meaningfully contribute not only to the Asia-Pacific but to the broader international community.

Korea intends to highlight two flagship initiatives: AI Cooperation and Responses to Demographic Change. The former seeks to establish an APEC-wide framework for responsible AI development, enhance digital capacity-building, and promote a sustainable AI investment ecosystem. The latter aims to transform demographic challenges—aging populations, workforce imbalances, and healthcare strains—into opportunities for innovation and growth through policy coordination in human-capital mobility, medical technology, and labor-market adaptation.

As these issues are addressed for the first time at the leaders’ level, Korea’s stewardship will be pivotal. Beyond ensuring the summit’s procedural success, Seoul also views the meeting as a platform to facilitate constructive dialogue between the United States and China.

President Trump has expressed optimism about a potential breakthrough with Chinese President Xi Jinping, suggesting that “a great trade deal” could emerge “for both countries and for the world.” Should the two leaders fail to stabilize their bilateral relationship in Gyeongju, the future of the global order could become even more precarious.

For Seoul, the summit also represents an opportunity to deepen U.S.–Korea economic cooperation. The two governments reportedly plan to include in the forthcoming summit communiqué a clause outlining a $350-billion Korean investment package in the United States—paired with a phased reduction of U.S. tariffs on Korean imports from 25 to 15 percent. The agreement may also include language allowing limited uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel reprocessing in South Korea, signaling progress in long-stalled bilateral negotiations.

Ultimately, the Gyeongju APEC Summit will serve as a critical proving ground for the future of the international order. Amid the dislocations caused by protectionism and the erosion of multilateralism, the world looks to APEC—and to Korea’s leadership—to reignite the spirit of open, rules-based cooperation upon which the Asia-Pacific’s prosperity has long depended.