The primary 12 months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s overseas coverage in Southeast Asia has been demonstrably blended. On the one hand, Trump unexpectedly strengthened U.S. multilateral engagement by working with the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). His administration additionally deepened key bilateral relationships with the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia—and even sought improved ties with Cambodia, regardless of its document as a serial human rights abuser. However, these achievements have been considerably offset by the lengthy shadow of Trump’s extremely unpopular tariffs on the area’s exports to the USA.
Extra broadly, Trump’s transactionalism—although it may be a useful asset in Southeast Asia at instances—additionally jeopardizes Washington’s long-term affect within the area. Together with his trademark unpredictability and volatility, Trump has fueled confusion, frustration, and a rising mistrust of U.S. intentions. These issues have been bolstered on Jan. 3, when Trump launched a navy raid to forcibly oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—prompting Singapore, an in depth and dependable U.S. companion—to notice that it was “gravely involved” concerning the preservation of worldwide legislation. Furthermore, the discharge of Trump’s new U.S. Nationwide Safety Technique final month barely even mentions Southeast Asia. The doc frames the area largely as a automobile for advancing U.S. financial aims somewhat than as a strategic companion in its personal proper.
The primary 12 months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s overseas coverage in Southeast Asia has been demonstrably blended. On the one hand, Trump unexpectedly strengthened U.S. multilateral engagement by working with the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). His administration additionally deepened key bilateral relationships with the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia—and even sought improved ties with Cambodia, regardless of its document as a serial human rights abuser. However, these achievements have been considerably offset by the lengthy shadow of Trump’s extremely unpopular tariffs on the area’s exports to the USA.
Extra broadly, Trump’s transactionalism—although it could be a useful asset in Southeast Asia at instances—additionally jeopardizes Washington’s long-term affect within the area. With his trademark unpredictability and volatility, Trump has fueled confusion, frustration, and a rising mistrust of U.S. intentions. These issues have been bolstered on Jan. 3, when Trump launched a navy raid to forcibly oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—prompting Singapore, an in depth and dependable U.S. companion—to notice that it was “gravely involved” concerning the preservation of worldwide legislation. Furthermore, the discharge of Trump’s new U.S. Nationwide Safety Technique final month barely even mentions Southeast Asia. The doc frames the area largely as a automobile for advancing U.S. financial aims somewhat than as a strategic companion in its personal proper.
It’s exactly one of these cold-blooded realism—one which brazenly treats Southeast Asia as a way towards the finish of better U.S. energy—that dangers creating a big strategic rift within the area. Some international locations, largely authoritarian or semi-authoritarian, have welcomed Trump’s strategy as a result of they’ve lengthy been suspicious of Washington’s motives and now see it as extra clear about its nationalist and egocentric priorities. Others, nonetheless—together with U.S. allies and shut companions whose safety is determined by a sustained and predictable U.S. dedication to discourage China—are more and more uneasy. These states usually tend to search strategic options, whether or not with China, Russia, or varied energy configurations involving Japan, Australia, India, South Korea, the European Union, or the UK.
The underside line is that as a result of Southeast Asia can not totally depend on the USA as a dependable great-power counterweight to China, the subsequent a number of years are prone to witness a gradual rewiring of regional partnerships. Conventional U.S. associates could domesticate nearer ties with China, whereas international locations traditionally aligned with Beijing could discover a new strategic outlet in Washington that permits them to flee overdependence on China. The online impact will likely be better strategic ambiguity inside ASEAN, significantly when negotiating delicate sovereignty disputes reminiscent of these over the South China Sea.
One space of intense focus for the Trump administration is sustaining the integrity and safety of economic delivery lanes. The NSS, for instance, argued {that a} Chinese language assault on Taiwan could be devastating to U.S. nationwide pursuits partially as a result of the island “gives direct entry to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters.” Moderately than emphasizing the geopolitical or human penalties of such an assault, the doc underscored that “[g]iven that one-third of world delivery passes yearly by way of the South China Sea, this has main implications for the U.S. financial system.”
This blunt framing is probably going unnerving to ASEAN members pushing again towards China’s expansive maritime claims. Whereas sustained U.S. consideration to the South China Sea is welcome in precept, the motivations behind it matter. If Washington is patrolling the area primarily for its personal financial pursuits, then how do the pursuits of regional states—particularly treaty allies—issue into U.S. decision-making? What if U.S. financial pursuits change, maybe resulting from accelerated decoupling from or engagement with China?
The Philippines gives a stark take a look at case. Beneath an “America First” overseas coverage, one may argue that it isn’t inherently in Washington’s curiosity to assist Manila defend its unique financial zone towards Beijing’s intrusions. As a substitute, the Philippines ought to shoulder that burden itself. Taken to its logical conclusion, this strategy raises critical questions on whether or not the USA would help Manila if a capturing struggle erupted over contested options reminiscent of Second Thomas Shoal or Scarborough Shoal.
To make certain, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had a profitable assembly with Trump on the White Home in July, and U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth later introduced the creation of a Activity Pressure Philippines to strengthen maritime safety cooperation to discourage China. Nonetheless, it stays unclear how excessive defending the Philippines underneath the 2 international locations’ mutual protection treaty ranks amongst Trump’s priorities, particularly when weighed towards competing financial and political issues, together with his need for a grand financial cut price with Beijing.
Vietnam faces related issues, although with out the safety of a proper safety treaty with the USA. In 2023, Hanoi elevated ties with Washington, then underneath the Biden administration, to “complete strategic”—the best standing in Vietnam’s official diplomatic hierarchy, on par with China and Russia. That transfer was supposed, partially, to additional enmesh U.S. and Vietnamese pursuits, together with within the South China Sea. But Washington’s narrowly outlined priorities underneath Trump recommend it could be much less prepared to help Vietnam’s protection of its maritime claims if doing so doesn’t clearly advance U.S. pursuits.
Past maritime safety, Trump has devoted rising consideration to securing provides of essential minerals. In the course of the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur in October, his administration signed mineral agreements with Cambodia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Throughout bilateral commerce negotiations with Indonesia, U.S. officers reportedly expressed robust curiosity in securing entry to Jakarta’s huge reserves of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper—sources essential to U.S. industrial provide chains and to decreasing Chinese language dominance.
In a extra controversial wrinkle, the Trump administration has additionally proven curiosity in Myanmar’s uncommon earth minerals—the world’s third-largest producer—regardless of the nation’s ongoing civil struggle. Choices reportedly into account embody participating each the navy junta underneath Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and insurgent organizations such because the Kachin Independence Military, doubtlessly buying and selling sanctions reduction for useful resource entry. Though progress has been restricted, the episode underscores the extent to which transactional logic is reshaping U.S. regional engagement.
Provide chains associated to synthetic intelligence signify one other focus. Final month, the administration introduced a brand new initiative dubbed “Pax Silica” that goals to safe the provision chains for silicon and different essential minerals which are important for superior semiconductor manufacturing. Notably, the rollout named just one Southeast Asian nation—Singapore—as a key companion, alongside U.S. allies Australia, Japan, and South Korea, with Taiwan included as a visitor. The exclusion of most of Southeast Asia raises but extra questions on which international locations Washington deems strategically helpful—and which it doesn’t.
In some respects, this fixation on entry, routes, and sources isn’t new. Previous U.S. administrations pursued related aims however usually did so with better subtlety and with an accompanying emphasis on alliances, partnerships, and values. The Trump administration has departed sharply from that strategy, brazenly signaling that until Southeast Asian states can display clear strategic profit to the USA, Washington feels no obligation to maintain engagement. As the brand new Nationwide Safety Technique bluntly acknowledged, “The times of the USA propping up your entire world order like Atlas are over.”
Put in another way, Trump’s near-exclusive emphasis on a slim conception of nationwide curiosity over values and even broader strategic objectives may make the USA behave extra like China. Beijing’s personal transactionalism—“pragmatism,” as Chinese language leaders favor to name it—has paid dividends in Southeast Asia, the place many governments admire China’s aversion to lecturing on democracy or human rights. However it’s far harder for the USA to drag off the identical strategy, given its historic function since World Conflict II because the chief of the liberal, rules-based worldwide order.
Neither is Washington prone to pull it off nicely. The US isn’t China, and Southeast Asia doesn’t count on it to behave as such. For many years, Washington’s affect within the area has rested not solely on energy and entry, however on reassurance—on the assumption that U.S. commitments, whereas imperfect, have been finally sturdy, predictable, and rooted in one thing past slim acquire. By discarding that basis in favor of specific transactionalism, the Trump administration dangers eroding the very benefits which have distinguished the USA from its chief strategic competitor.
Southeast Asian states are pragmatic, not sentimental. If U.S. engagement is lowered to a steadiness sheet—delivery lanes protected right here, minerals extracted there—then regional governments will reply in sort, diversifying companions, diluting U.S. leverage, and hedging ever extra aggressively towards China. Over time, this won’t yield better U.S. affect, however much less: a area much less prepared to align, much less assured in U.S. resolve, and fewer inclined to take dangers on Washington’s behalf.
In looking for to flee the burden of management, the USA could finally uncover that it has surrendered its biggest strategic asset in Southeast Asia—the belief that when made Washington’s energy not simply formidable, however preferable throughout a lot of the area.
