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From Tariffs To Tribute: The $350B Price Of ‘Parity’

On October 29, 2025, the carefully scripted pageantry of the US-ROK alliance in Gyeongju and Seoul met an unwelcome counter-narrative from the streets. While US President Donald Trump was being feted with a Silla-era replica gold crown and Korea’s highest honor, thousands of workers, trade unionists, farmers, students, and women’s collectives converged near the APEC venues. They chanted a unified dissent: “No kings!” and “No to APEC for the 1%”. Organizers framed the protest as a demand for the restoration of national dignity against what they saw as an act of economic coercion.

The World Economy’s Centre Of Gravity Shifts To Asia

On the last day of October 2025, leaders from the 21 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will meet in the city of Gyeongju in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) for the organisation’s 33rd summit. Since its founding in 1989 in Canberra, Australia, APEC has promoted building a zone of ‘free and open trade’ – a concept outlined by the Bogor Goals, which came out of the summit in Indonesia in 1994. APEC is a creature of its times. First, it emerged as an instrument of Japan’s Pacific Economic Cooperation Council with the goal of building regional supply chains after the Plaza Accord (1985) appreciated the yen against the dollar.

Trump Met With Popular Protests In South Korea

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Gyeongju and several other cities in South Korea to oppose US President Donald Trump’s visit to the country on Wednesday, October 29. Protesters in Gyeongju tried to march to the Bomun Tourist Complex, the venue of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. They were stopped nearly five kilometers from the venue by security forces, The Korean Times reported. Despite the security barricade, some of the protesters reached near the summit venue which caused a brief clash with security forces and led to minor injuries. Protesters carried banners and posters denouncing US policies and shouted slogans such as “No King: Trump is not welcome!” and “No APEC!”

What Is APEC?

If you look at the news, the media treats the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum more like a gala than a policy forum about regional economic policies. Despite high level meetings having occurred between the government and business interests (i.e., the APEC Business Advisory Committee), despite two senior official meetings having taken place, the media has done a negligible job of bringing the agenda and discussions in these meetings to public consciousness or debate. Instead, it has mostly focused on who will be there – K-pop megastar G-Dragon was named APEC Ambassador – or whether the accommodations and infrastructure are adequate.

US Influence On The Decline As China And BRICS On The Rise

In recent weeks, various summits and international conferences took place that set the priorities both regionally and internationally for the next several years. Two in particular in the region of Nuestra América highlighted both the growing influence of China and its Belt and Road Initiative and the US empire’s declining power in its “backyard”. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, APEC 2024 , Perú and the Group of 20, G20 summit , in Río de Janeiro, Brazil took place in November and both provided glaring examples on the world stage of the decline of US influence and the rise of BRICS and China as contending power players in the region.

Biden’s APEC Summit Visit: ‘One More Slap In Face To Western Empire’

Outgoing US President Joe Biden was unable to score a diplomatic breakthrough of any kind last week during his appearance at the annual APEC Summit in Peru. The meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping was pure formality, argues Jeff J. Brown, author of “The China Trilogy” and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation. “The Chinese know that Biden is the quintessential lame duck. Being very Confucist and wanting to respect protocol, position and tradition, they met. But that is about all,” Brown says. According to him, what Xi told Biden during the meeting basically amounted to reiterating what the former previously told Donald Trump by phone earlier this month: “cooperation is mutually beneficial for both sides; as two leading world powers, humanity depends on us to do the right thing, and trying to limit China’s progress and development is bound to fail.”

APEC Summit Brings More US Troops To Perú Amid National Strike

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Perú 2024, the annual meeting of the APEC Forum leaders, will be held from 10 to 16 November 2024 in various parts of the country. Among the confirmed attendees is Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , but noticeable absentees include Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, in what would be days after the US elections. APEC brings together 21 different countries in the Asia Pacific to “promote free trade” through the region, but only 11 have confirmed attendance, according to La Republica.

Why Activists Shut Down The 2023 APEC Summit In San Francisco

From Nov. 11-17, leaders from 20 nations across the Pacific Rim gathered in San Francisco for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. An activist coalition known as No to APEC greeted the visiting world leaders with a countersummit decrying APEC as a forum to advance the interests of transnational corporations at the expense of workers and the environment. While the Biden administration worked to construct a new free trade regime in the Pacific exclusive of China, known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), grassroots organizations in the No to APEC Coalition advanced an alternate vision of international cooperation and development in opposition to the corporate, pro-war agenda pushed by the US and allied governments at APEC.

No To APEC Coalition Unity Statement

At the close of our People’s Counter Summit Against APEC, we issued a unity statement to summarize the positions of the No To APEC Coalition during our 2023 campaign culminating in the 800+ person Counter Summit.  The statement is titled “People and Planet against Profit and Plunder: Towards a World Beyond Profit-Oriented Systems!” We publish this statement as the APEC Heads of State concluded their own Summit with the so-called “Golden Gate Declaration” to lay out the rosey-sounding false solutions they spent an entire year writing while desperately-needed practical policies for reversing the global economic, political and climate crises eluded them.

Civil Disobedience Action At APEC CEO Summit

San Francisco, CA - Members of the No to APEC Coalition engaged in a civil disobedience action by blocking access to the site of the APEC CEO Summit at the Moscone West Convention Center in defiance of the hyper-militarized structures erected by the local and federal government. This action is the latest effort by the No to APEC Coalition during its months-long campaign to highlight the global and local harms of free trade and global free market agendas while demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.  “We know APEC and IPEF do not represent the interest of the people or the planet,” said Rhonda Ramiro from the No to APEC Coalition.

APEC Summit In San Francisco Met With Mass Protests

10,000 people took to the streets on Sunday, November 12 to protest the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings taking place in San Francisco this week. The APEC summit will run from November 11 to 17. The protest took place following a 1,000-person APEC counter-summit on November 11. The mobilizations have been organized by the No to APEC Coalition, which represents almost 150 organizations across the United States. “APEC is the epitome of all that is wicked and corrupt in our society today,” said Simon Ma, a family doctor and member of the anti-imperialist Korean-American organization Nodutdol. He described APEC as a “cabal of billionaires and politicians scheming behind closed doors, trying to come up with new and innovative ways to further exploit the working class of our planet.”

No To APEC Coalition Calls On City Officials To Defend Free Speech

San Francisco - The No to APEC Coalition demands immediate action by Mayor London Breed, the federal government, and all San Francisco elected officials to reaffirm long standing support for civil and human rights, rights to free speech, protest, and dissent during the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) “Economic Leaders’ Week” and “CEO Summit,” in November 11-18, 2023. “The Department of Homeland Security has designated the APEC Summit as a ‘National Special Security Event.’ The Secret Service is creating a protest exclusion zone around the Moscone Center, where the event will take place, which threatens to prevent the public from exercising its First Amendment right to protest within sight and sound of the APEC and CEO summit delegates.

Popular Resistance From The Philippines To Baltimore

In a large yet intimate gathering seated around the projector in the middle of Baltimore’s NoMüNoMü gallery on Aug. 18, the Black Alliance for Peace- Baltimore and Malaya Baltimore held a discussion “From the Philippines to Baltimore: The Indo-Pacific Command, Neocolonialism, and You!” The event was part of BAP- Baltimore’s “Baltimore Summer School” series. Information handed out at the start of the event explained the exploitative nature of Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). APEC is a “neoliberal scheme called ‘free trade’ that makes it easy for… transnational corporations … by eliminating labor and environmental protections.”

Peoples Summit Against APEC

Seattle, WA - A delegation from Workers World Party branches in Seattle, Portland and New York City attended the People’s Summit Against APEC on July 29 and 30, put on by Pacific Northwest-People Over Profit. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a neoliberal, free-trade conference where “government and big business collude to prioritize corporate profits at the expense of the global working class and poor”. The People’s Summit had over 350 people in attendance and was sponsored by nearly two dozen groups. Organizers included Anakbayan USA, Bayan Seattle, Oregon People Organizing for Philippines Solidarity, International Women’s Alliance and more.
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