(Bloomberg) -- Most Southeast Asian leaders skipped a summit on Monday with U.S. representatives after President Donald Trump decided to avoid the annual meetings for a second straight year.
Leaders from Thailand, Laos and Vietnam were the only ones to show up from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations for the summit with National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, who was leading the U.S. delegation. It was the lowest level representation for the U.S. at the meetings since Barack Obama upgraded ties with Asean in 2011.
In remarks at the summit, O'Brien said the U.S. must defend its relationship with Asean at all costs. He read aloud a letter from Trump inviting regional leaders to join him in the U.S. for a special summit.
No Trump or Pence in Bangkok Has Asia Questioning U.S. Strategy
The three leaders who attended included Prayuth Chan-Ocha of Thailand, the current chair of Asean; Thongloun Sisoulith of Laos, the coordinator between the bloc and the U.S.; and Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam, which will host the Asean meetings in 2020. Thai foreign ministry spokeswoman Busadee Santipitaks confirmed the other leaders stayed away.
Video from the event showed seven foreign ministers sitting at a table usually reserved for prime ministers. Santipitaks' statement came after a reporter questioned why only three leaders were in attendance.
The U.S. had expressed concern to Asean diplomats about the “intentional effort to embarrass” Trump with the partial boycott, the Bangkok Post reported, citing an unidentified diplomat. “We are extremely concerned by the apparent decision,” the diplomat quoted a U.S. message to the bloc as saying, according to the newspaper.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is also in Bangkok, defended U.S. strategy in Asia on Monday. He said Trump remains “fully committed” to the Indo-Pacific, citing 24 senior U.S. officials and eight government agencies represented at the meetings.
“In terms of our participation here, it's very, very fulsome,” Ross said in an interview.
The U.S. and Asean made no immediate statements after the meeting. China sent Premier Li Keqiang -- President Xi Jinping's No. 2 -- as it does every year.
To contact the reporters on this story: Natnicha Chuwiruch in Bangkok at nchuwiruch@bloomberg.net;Philip J. Heijmans in Bangkok at pheijmans1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, ;Sunil Jagtiani at sjagtiani@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh
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