A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China's Xi

If things had gone differently last week, U.S. President Joe Biden could have arrived at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru on Thursday projecting confidence and pledging his successor’s cooperation with eager Latin American partners. No longer. Just as in 2016, the last time that Lima hosted APEC, Donald Trump’s election victory has pulled the rug out from under a lame-duck Democrat at the high-profile summit attended by over a dozen world leaders. The renewed prospect of Trump’s “America First” doctrine hampers Biden’s ability to reinforce the U.S. profile on his first presidential trip to South America, experts say, leaving China and its leader, Xi Jinping, to steal the limelight in America’s proverbial backyard.