Trump Teases Xi Talks at APEC; Vance Expects Troop Payments Despite Shutdown

On today's podcast: 1) President Trump said the US has a “special bond” with South Korea as he addressed a meeting of corporate leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Wednesday in Gyeongju. Trump’s visit to the conference comes as he’s looking to work through a series of outstanding issues in his trade deal with South Korea, and prepares for a high-stakes meeting on Thursday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, Trump said he expects to lower tariffs the US has imposed on Chinese goods over the fentanyl crisis and speak with China’s Xi Jinping about Nvidia Corp.’s flagship Blackwell artificial intelligence chip, as leaders of the world’s biggest economies seek to ease tensions in a meeting on Thursday. Nvidia shares rallied in premarket trading on Wednesday, putting the stock on track to breach $5 trillion in market capitalization, making the semiconductor giant the first public company in history to hit the milestone. 2) Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba less than a day after it became the strongest recorded storm to strike Jamaica, where it left hundreds of thousands without power and forced hospitals to evacuate. Melissa crossed the coast in eastern Cuba as an “extremely dangerous” storm, the US National Hurricane Center said in a statement at about 3:10 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. As much as 25 inches (63 centimeters) of rain and storm surges up to 12 feet (3.7 meters) above normal are expected. 3) Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday he expects the Trump administration to pay military personnel on Friday, even as the government shutdown shows no end in sight. The administration circumvented Congress and moved about $8 billion in research and development funds to cover the military’s payroll on Oct. 15. But Republicans have cautioned that they could not guarantee paychecks for troops if the shutdown persisted. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.