US presidential trips abroad have traditionally been an opportunity to display the power of the American nation on the world stage. Donald Trump’s five-day swing through eastern Asia, on the other hand, has been a display of the power of Trump – but also, at times, of that power’s limitations.

Trump’s stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea over the course of the first four days were an exercise in pleasing a sometimes mercurial American president. It was an acknowledgement that Trump, with the flick of a pen, could impose tariffs and other measures that have the potential to devastate the economies of export-dependent nations.

His sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, however, was something entirely different.

It was a meeting of equals on the global stage, where the stakes for both nations – for their economies, for their international prestige, for the welfare of their people – were enormous.

With China, Trump may flick his pen, but such actions come with consequences. They come with a cost.

For the first four days, Trump’s most recent foray into global diplomacy was smooth sailing.

Each stop was punctuated by a blend of traditional trade negotiations – deals made under the shadow of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs – and personal accommodations that at times bordered on the obsequious.

In Malaysia, Trump secured access to critical minerals and made progress toward finalising trade arrangements with south-east Asian nations. He also presided over a treaty that should ease border tensions between Thailand and Cambodia – the kind of “peace deal” the American president loves to tout.

In Japan, Trump’s Marine One flew past a Tokyo Tower lit red, white and blue – with a top in Trumpian gold.

Newly elected Prime Minister Sanai Takaichi detailed $550bn in Japanese investments in the US and offered the American president a gift of 250 cherry trees for America’s 250th birthday, and a golf club and bag that belonged to Shinzo Abe, the assassinated former prime minister who bonded with Trump in his first term.

She also became the latest foreign leader to nominate Trump for his much-desired Nobel Peace Prize.

Not to be outdone, South Korea welcomed Trump with artillery firing a 21-gun salute and a military band that played Hail to the Chief and YMCA – the Village People song that has become a Trump rally anthem.

President Lee Jae Myung held an “honour ceremony” for Trump during which he gave the American leader his nation’s highest medal and a replica of an ancient Korean dynastic crown.

Lunch with Lee featured a “Peacemaker’s Dessert” of gold-encrusted brownies. Later that day, the Koreans served Trump vineyard wine at an intimate dinner in Trump’s honour with six world leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference summit.

The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees admitted to the US to 7,500, and give priority to white South Africans.

The move, announced in a notice published on Thursday, will apply for the next fiscal year and marks a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by former President Joe Biden.

No reason was given for the cut, but the notice said it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, or USRAP, which he said would allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.

The notice posted to the website of the Federal Register said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.

In the Oval Office in May, Trump criticised South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and claimed white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.

The White House also played a video which they said showed burial sites for murdered white farmers. Trump said he did not know where in South Africa the scene was filmed.

The tense meeting came just days after the US granted asylum to 60 Afrikaners. It later emerged that the videos were scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.

On his first day in office on 20 January, Trump said the US would suspend USRAP to reflect the US’s lack of “ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans” and “protects their safety and security”.

The US policy of accepting white South Africans has already prompted accusations of unfair treatment from refugee advocacy groups.

Some have argued the US is now effectively shut to other persecuted groups or people facing potential harm in their home country, and even former allies that helped US forces in Afghanistan or the Middle East.

“This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling,” Global Refuge CEO and president Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said on Thursday. “It lowers our moral standing.”

“At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the programme’s purpose as well as its credibility,” she added.

The South African government has yet to respond to the latest announcement.

During the Oval Office meeting, President Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Trump’s] head”.

The US Federal Reserve pushed forward with an interest rate cut as inflation fears continue to take a backseat to concerns about a stalling labour market.

It came despite the US government shutdown, nearing its one-month mark, which delayed official data and left central bankers “flying blind” about the job market, economists said.

The US central bank said on Wednesday it was lowering the target for its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points, putting it in a range of 3.75% to 4%.

The Fed last month cut interest rates for the first time since last December. Economists expected the move to jump-start further reductions, but the data drought means the trajectory for future cuts looks murky.

Two voting members on the Fed’s committee opposed the central bank’s decision on Wednesday.

Stephen Miran, who is on leave from his post leading US President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, voted for a larger 0.5 percentage point cut. Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, voted to hold rates steady.

The Fed’s latest cut brings the target for its key lending rate down to its lowest level in three years, easing borrowing costs across the US.

A slowdown in job hiring prompted the Fed to restart its rate cutting cycle in September. In a policy statement on Wednesday, the central bank reiterated that “job gains have slowed this year” and that the unemployment rate, though still low through the end of summer, has now “edged up”.

At a press conference following the cut, Fed chair Jerome Powell called the labour market “less dynamic and somewhat softer” than earlier this year, pointing in part to lower immigration.

Still, he said weakness in the job market does not appear to be accelerating.

But the ongoing government shutdown has stalled the release of the official monthly jobs report for September, limiting central bankers’ insight into how the labour market has fared since their last meeting.

Alternative sources including private-sector data have pointed to an ongoing trend of sluggish hiring. The US economy lost 32,000 jobs in September, according to data from the payroll firm ADP.

The Labor Department did release inflation data for September last week. The figure, at 3% year-over-year, was slightly lower than economists had predicted, reinforcing the likelihood that rate-setters would vote to lower borrowing costs again.

Fears about tariff-driven inflation had taken centre stage earlier this year when Trump pushed forward with sweeping tariffs on many of the country’s largest trading partners.

Inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% target. But while tariffs appear to be boosting some consumer prices, the milder-than-expected inflation reading for September allowed the Fed to focus on boosting the labour market by lowering rates, economists at Bank of America noted.

“Inflation away from tariffs is actually not so far from our 2% goal,” Powell told reporters. He said the hope among central bankers is that tariffs only lead to one-time price increases for certain consumer products.

The Fed on Wednesday also said it will stop shrinking its balance sheet – its portfolio of government debt and mortgage-backed securities – on 1 December.

For more than three years, the central bank has undertaken a process to unwind its purchases during the pandemic and previous financial crises, when it aimed to boost the economy and bring down interest rates. That unwinding process is now poised to end, as widely anticipated, amid signs of stress in financial markets.

‘Strongly differing views’ on a December cut

Wall Street had been betting on another quarter-point interest rate cut from the central bank at its last meeting of the year in December.

But those bets fell after Powell on Wednesday stressed that a December cut is “not to be seen as a foregone conclusion – in fact, far from it”.

“Future moves are becoming more contentious,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief US economist at Oxford Economics. “We expect the Fed to slow the pace of cuts from here.”

A lot might still change before the Fed’s next meeting. It could receive three new jobs reports, which could “significantly change perceptions of the labour market for better or worse”, Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JP Morgan, wrote in a note.

At the same time, if the government shutdown persists and continues to limit the availability of government data, that could also encourage the Fed to sit on its hands at the end of the year.

“What do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down,” Powell said.

He told reporters that “there were strongly differing views about how to proceed” among members of the Fed’s committee, and the decision will ultimately depend on incoming economic data.

“We’re going to collect every scrap of data we can find,” Powell said.

The Fed chair has been under pressure from President Trump, who has repeatedly called on him to lower interest rates.

Trump on Monday floated the possibility that he will announce a replacement for Powell, whose term ends next May, by end the end of this year.