LIMA – After two days of meetings in Lima that rarely ventured beyond platitudes in discussing strategies for robust economic engagement, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation the forum ended on Saturday with a spirit of detention that many fear the annual summit will not see again for the next four years.

The 21 leaders from economies bordering the Pacific, including US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, descended on Peru this week as America’s incoming president, Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the US from leading a global free trade agenda.

Few could help but notice that Biden’s late entrance to the traditional APEC family photo on Saturday it lent itself to political metaphorwhile the rest of the leaders took their places on the elevators before looking around to find Biden gone. They bickered for five awkward minutes before a visibly dazed Biden arrived and took the stage in the back corner.

Chinese President Xi, who draped himself in the banner of globalization this week inaugurating a massive $1.3 billion megaport in Peru and using his speeches to push back against protectionism, he got prime stage photography, front and center. All the leaders wore woolen scarves in the color of the bark of Peru – in the APEC tradition of posing in a representative outfit of the host country.

Biden left the stage as reporters shouted questions, demanding an answer at his final APEC summit and one of his last major global events as US president.

Much of the conversation around APEC this year has focused on the heightened trade and security rivalry between the US and China. Biden and Xi will sit down later Saturday for them the third and final meeting of Biden’s mandate. They last met a year ago at APEC in California.