On Tuesday, Trump said Washington was in the "final throes" of a deal which would potentially diffuse trade tensions that have raged for 16 months, though he reiterated that the U.S. would continue to back pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong - a sore point with China.
On the downside, China's industrial profits for October shrank at their fastest pace in eight months, data released earlier in the day showed, reinforcing fears that the trade war continues to hurt the world's second largest economy.
"The Chinese probably have President Trump to thank today, with his trade comments overnight taking the edge of today's China data," Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA said in a note.
Halley added that talks appear to be moving in the right direction, even if their progress seems agonizingly slow.
China is the biggest trading partner for most Southeast Asian economies and any sign of slowdown in its economy stokes fear of a trickle-down effect in the region.
The Philippine benchmark bounced from a near seven-week closing low touched in the previous session to close 1.7% higher. The index has shed 1.5% over the past two sessions.
The index was lifted by blue chips, with conglomerates Ayala Land and DMCI Holdings rising 4.6% and 3.7%, respectively.
Malaysian equities edged higher, with index heavyweight Tenaga Nasional adding 1.2%, after posting a 140% jump in quarterly net profit earlier in the day.
Vietnamese stocks closed 0.1% higher, lifted by financials. Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) rose 1.9%.
However, Indonesian stocks extended their fall to a fifth straight session, with the index having lost 2.2% across the past five days, including Wednesday's performance.
Financials dragged the benchmark, with PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk dropping 0.4% and PT Bank Pan Indonesia falling 2.8% .
The Thai index see-sawed throughout the session to close marginally lower while Singapore equities closed slightly higher.
(This story refiles to amend editing credit)
By Arundhati Dutta
