The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) strongly denounces Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for extending an invitation to US President Donald Trump to attend the ASEAN-US Summit in October 2025 here in Malaysia. Such a gesture is a blatant betrayal of all the efforts of solidarity with Palestine against US-backed genocide in Gaza by the murderous Israeli Zionist regime.

The invitation was made by Anwar Ibrahim himself to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who visited Malaysia recently. It is a shame for the government of Malaysia to host a top official in the Trump administration and acting National Security Advisor to the US President, who just imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, over her documentation of Israel’s genocidal crime against Palestinians in Gaza and her call for action to end Israel’s human rights violations.

The ongoing genocide conducted by the murderous Israeli Zionist regime since October 2023 has already killed at least 57,000 people in Gaza. At the moment, the Israeli forces are even shooting and killing Palestinians who are trying to reach food distribution sites. The murderous Israeli Zionist regime is able to continue its crime against humanity with impunity because of the strong backing from the US government all this while. The Trump administration has shown its unwavering support for Israel’s expansionism and recently joined Israel’s war against Iran by directly bombing Iran.

A top government leader who enabled and supported genocide, like Donald Trump, should be treated as a persona non grata rather than invited as a guest for a money-wasting diplomatic show. It is also a sheer hypocrisy for a government to express solidarity with the Palestinian people while posing friendly gestures to the accomplice of the genocidal crime against the Palestinian people.

We urge the government of Malaysia to retract the invitation to Donald Trump to visit Malaysia. We also call upon the government of Malaysia, as the chair of ASEAN this year, to cancel the ASEAN-US Summit as a symbolic protest against the US complicity in the genocide against Palestinian people. There shall be no business as usual with the US administration until the world has put an end to the genocide against the Palestinian people.