<h1>APEC summit: leaders agree steps to ease trade tensions, urging regulatory harmonisation and cooperation on AI and demographics.</h1> Summit participants responded to US-China steps to ease trade tensions by stressing preservation of free and open trade, resisting protectionism, and pursuing multilateral regulatory harmonisation and coordinated standards for digital innovation; host priorities included cooperative AI policy, demographic response sharing, and formulating joint growth strategies, while the prospect of a unified nonbinding declaration reflected divergent member positions.