In Southeast Asia, Trump Reinforces Worst Fears About The Us

In Southeast Asia, Trump reinforces worst fears about the US Expert comment thilton.drupal 14 March 2025

While many in the region were unperturbed by his election, the US president’s disruptive approach threatens the open and predictable world in which Southeast Asia has flourished.

Most European governments believe that the US president Donald Trump is dangerous because he is overturning Washington’s approach to the world by trashing alliances, undermining liberal democracy and abandoning the rules-based order.

In Southeast Asia, by contrast, many officials believe that Trump is simply reinforcing their worst pre-existing suspicions about America. From economic coercion to threatening sovereignty violations and disregarding international agreements and organizations, the US has previous form in their region and beyond. Trump, as they see it, is simply a more disruptive and shameless version of those who came before him in the White House.

Among regional friends and sceptics of the US alike, there is nonetheless great nervousness about how the Trump administration will approach Southeast Asia, especially as it is a key crucible for US–China rivalry and home to several countries with sizeable US trade deficits. The unabashed nature of Trump’s transactional, bullying style has also intensified fears about US abandonment, and a growing sense of fatalism about China’s rise to regional dominance.

Predictably unpredictable on China

Southeast Asia’s diverse nations encompass a broad range of views of Washington, from US allies such as the Philippines to close Chinese partners such as Laos and Cambodia. Some of the region’s leaders privately claim that they are comfortable with a more transactional and unilateral US, much in the way that India has embraced Trump’s return. However, there are some core shared fears about how the new administration may shape the region’s trajectory for the worse. 

Ng Eng Hen, the minister of defence of Singapore, one of Washington’s most supportive regional partners, summed it up on a trip to Germany in February: the US has gone from ‘liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent’.

The first area of worry is Trump’s predictably unpredictable position on China, which flits from highly confrontational to suggestions of a possible strongman ‘bromance’ with its leader Xi Jinping. On one hand, Southeast Asian governments fear that the US president could exacerbate already heightened tensions with Beijing over the South China Sea or Taiwan. On the other, they worry that he could seek a grand bargain with Xi that would leave the region at Beijing’s mercy.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are committed China hawks and have attempted to reassure the Philippines – which is on the front line of Beijing’s assertive behaviour in the South China Sea – about US support. Yet, many in the region remain wary about Washington’s commitment because of Trump’s own wavering instincts on China and the more accommodative tone of business leaders in his administration such as Elon Musk.

Tariffs and fears of economic collateral damage 

The second area of concern is how far Trump will damage the international trading system and the broader global order on which Southeast Asia’s small and middle powers depend. Some regional officials are glad that they will face fewer lectures from Washington on human rights, democracy and the rules-based order. But governments and businesses are still anxious about the risk of tariffs and the destruction that the Trump administration might wreak on global trade and investment rules and norms. 

Southeast Asia has benefited from economic competition between Washington and Beijing over the last few years, as Chinese and foreign companies have moved manufacturing capacity out of China into the region and tried to find new sources of final demand for their goods. But regional governments and companies now fear being targeted by the Trump administration for their success. Vietnam tops the at-risk list, running the third-biggest goods trade deficit with the US last year, after China and Mexico, totalling $124 billion. The US also has sizeable trade deficits with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. 

Beyond the tariff threat, the region’s open, trading economies could be badly hit by the collateral damage of Trump’s protectionist policies and his rejection of the spirit and the rules of global cooperation, which have underpinned Southeast Asia’s impressive story of growth and development. 

A race to the bottom on global governance is also a collateral risk: the Indonesian government has already questioned why it should abide by the Paris Agreement on climate change, if the US is pulling out. 

‘Trump-proofing’ the region

So what can Southeast Asia do about Trump? (‘Hope that he doesn’t remember we exist’, one senior regional official joked to me.) 

More seriously, in the short term, Malaysia, which currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has proposed a special leaders’ summit with the US to win Trump’s favour. The personal touch matters but a single meeting is unlikely to ‘Trump-proof’ the region, especially as ASEAN’s bureaucratic style is not well matched to this White House. 

Over the medium term, Southeast Asia needs to prepare for a US that is more unpredictable and self-interested, whether it is winding down its engagement in the region or entangling countries in its problems.

The region’s governments will need to work harder to find common ground with each other and honestly engage over their differences to ensure they are more resilient in the face of a rising China, an erratic US and a fracturing global order. They should focus on intensifying their economic integration, which has lagged behind ASEAN’s lofty rhetoric, to increase the region’s competitiveness, heft and negotiating power.