WASHINGTON — President Trump has decided to attend a summit meeting of Pacific Rim leaders in the Philippines on Nov. 14, the White House said Friday, a decision that will tack an extra day onto his already lengthy tour of the region.
The president will visit Asia amid heightened concerns in Beijing, Seoul, and Toyko about the heightened threat of a war with a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for Hawaii, the first leg of his trip, Trump said he planned to spend an extra day in the Philippines at the end of his 11 days on the road. The trip also includes stops in China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam.
After Trump left, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that he would attend the East Asia summit, a meeting of leaders from Australia, Japan, China, Russia, and other countries that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, had made a priority.
Trump’s earlier decision to skip the meeting had rattled officials in the region, who warned that it would raise questions about the United States’ commitment to Southeast Asia.
Coupled with Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his heavy focus on the North Korea crisis, some analysts said that if he were a no-show at the summit, it would deepen questions about the United States’ future in the region.
North Korea’s fast-growing nuclear weapons programs and Trump’s escalating rhetoric on Pyongyang have raised worries in the region.
Trump’s national security adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, told reporters this week that the world is ‘‘running out of time’’ to stop North Korea, which he described as “a threat to the entire world.’’
During the trip, Trump’s aides said, he will apply more pressure on Pyongyang to head off its nuclear threat.
Under pressure from the United States, the UN Security Council has approved two rounds of stiffer economic sanctions, and a growing number of countries have severed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and banished North Korean guest workers.
But few analysts believe such steps will persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to abandon his pursuit of a nuclear weapon that can reach the US mainland, and that has raised questions about how real are Trump’s threats to use military force.
In a separate development Friday, a spokesman for the Kremlin said that US and Russian officials were discussing a meeting between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia during the trip.
It could occur on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Danang, Vietnam, before Trump flies to Manila.
“The importance for international affairs of any contact between the Russian and US presidents can hardly be overestimated,’’ the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters Friday. On Thursday, McMaster did not rule out a meeting.
While Trump’s decision to stay longer in Manila will be widely welcomed in Southeast Asia, it could add to the concerns of White House officials about the grueling nature of the trip — the longest tour of Asia by a US president since President George H.W. Bush late 1991.
Any meeting between Trump and Putin would come amid continued tensions between the two countries. The US president has been under pressure in Washington for seemingly dragging his feet on implementing new sanctions against Russia over accusations that it meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
Since their first meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in July, relations have only deteriorated further.
After the new sanctions passed Congress, Putin ordered the United States to cut hundreds of mostly local staffers from its diplomatic missions in Russia. The United States has in turn pressured two Russian-government news organizations to register as foreign agents.
Just this week, there has been a stream of revelations about Russia flooding US social media with propaganda and charges have been brought in an investigation about possible collusion with Russia during the campaign.
One campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about trying to organize a meeting with senior Russian officials.
Washington and Moscow also have traded barbed remarks over North Korea, Syria, and nuclear arms proliferation.
Trump confirmed the possibility of a meeting, telling Fox News late Thursday that Putin could be helpful on North Korea and Syria, and that the two should discuss Ukraine.
