A White House statement confirmed that President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend the ASEAN gathering in Manila before proceeding to China for the APEC meeting, with both events set for next month. According to the statement, released on Sunday, the visit to Manila on November 16 would be followed by Trump's attendance at the APEC gathering in Shenzhen, where proceedings are scheduled to run from November 17 through November 19.

According to a White House official, the visit is intended to reinforce ties with allied nations across Southeast Asia while advancing the country's economic and national security priorities. A face-to-face encounter between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping — their third of the calendar year, following an earlier gathering in Beijing and a subsequent visit by Xi to the White House — is scheduled to take place on Chinese soil.

Serving as ASEAN chair for the current year, the Philippines has designated three days — 16 to 18 November — as non-working holidays across Metro Manila to accommodate the 49th ASEAN Summit and its associated gatherings. Among the forums on the agenda is the East Asia Summit, a body in which both India and the United States hold membership.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attending ASEAN foreign ministers' meetings in Manila in July, conveyed through remarks there that the president held an interest in participating, noting that he believed the president would want to. Rubio told reporters at the time that he had no information about what the timetable would look like.

At a BRICS summit gathering in New Delhi in September, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos extended a fresh invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend both the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit, with Marcos noting afterward that he anticipated welcoming the Indian prime minister to Manila that November.

Any potential encounter in Manila between Trump and Modi would unfold against a backdrop of unresolved friction between Washington and New Delhi, with disputes over trade tariffs and India's continued procurement of Russian oil having kept bilateral relations under pressure. At the prior year's ASEAN-India Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Modi participated via video link rather than travelling in person, while External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar represented the country at the East Asia Summit — an arrangement that kept any face-to-face engagement with Trump, who was present at the gathering, from taking place. A phone call between the two leaders on 30 September was later characterised by Modi as having gone well in terms of dialogue.

Under Section 113 of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, a statutory deadline falling on 18 October requires the President to impose tariffs of as much as 100 per cent on imports from whichever five countries rank as the top purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas and continue those purchases. India has ranked among the top destinations for Russian crude oil exports throughout the period following 2022. Under the statute, a presidential certification to Congress that such an exemption serves the national interest opens the door to suspending those duties. At the same time, the administration has been pursuing purchases of Russian diesel fuel.

India's External Affairs Ministry put forward a counter-argument in August 2025, pointing out that the United States draws on Russian supplies across several sectors — purchasing uranium hexafluoride for nuclear energy, palladium for electric-vehicle manufacturing, fertilisers, and various chemicals.

Eleven nations — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste — make up the ASEAN bloc. Convening under the East Asia Summit framework, the ten ASEAN nations sit alongside eight partner countries, among them India, Japan, Australia, China, and the United States. Twenty-one Pacific Rim economies make up the membership of APEC, a grouping that does not include India.