In a Bernama report, investment, trade and industry minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said all Asean leaders had agreed to go to the US to meet Trump during the summit.

He reiterated that Asean did not believe in retaliatory tariff actions as the 10-member bloc wanted to continue engaging with Washington.

“I am made to understand from the Asean secretariat that we are now waiting for the US to revert,” he said during an interview with CNBC this morning.

Tengku Zafrul said that despite the tariffs, Malaysia still believed in a rules-based multilateral trading system, with Malaysian officials in Washington currently engaging with the US on the tariffs.

He also said that foreign minister Mohamad Hasan had been engaging with US secretary of state Marco Rubio on the matter.

The sweeping tariffs announced by Trump last week sparked the most intense period of financial market volatility since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, wiping out trillions of dollars from stock markets and leading to fears of a global recession.

In a stunning reversal on Wednesday, Trump said he would delay the tariffs for 90 days. However, he said a basic levy of 10% on dozens of countries would remain, and that he would raise the tariff on China from 104% to 125%.

Yesterday, Asean’s economic ministers said that the 10-member bloc would not impose any retaliatory measures as the group wanted to engage in a “frank and constructive” dialogue with the US to address trade-related concerns.