U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit went as well as one could hope. Trump struck a positive tone from the start, dancing on the red carpet that greeted his arrival.
But the bigger picture remains alarming. Under the second Trump administration, the United States is quickly burning through the goodwill and support it has in the region. Trump’s unilateral tariffs against export-reliant economies like Malaysia and Vietnam have generated deep anger. So while the administration managed to strike bilateral trade deals with Cambodia and Malaysia, as well as framework agreements with Thailand and Vietnam, it still lacks a comprehensive regional strategy to arrest declining U.S. influence.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit went as well as one could hope. Trump struck a positive tone from the start, dancing on the red carpet that greeted his arrival.
But the bigger picture remains alarming. Under the second Trump administration, the United States is quickly burning through the goodwill and support it has in the region. Trump’s unilateral tariffs against export-reliant economies like Malaysia and Vietnam have generated deep anger. So while the administration managed to strike bilateral trade deals with Cambodia and Malaysia, as well as framework agreements with Thailand and Vietnam, it still lacks a comprehensive regional strategy to arrest declining U.S. influence.
If Trump is unwilling to change his approach to tariffs, then he should at least appoint the ambassadors and National Security Council (NSC) staff necessary to engage in Southeast Asia. Sustained attention, rather than the occasional dance, is necessary to confront Chinese influence in the region.
During the first Trump administration, Washington prioritized great-power competition with China as the lodestar of U.S. foreign policy. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy put it, “Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department, and require both increased and sustained investment, because of the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security and prosperity.” The doctrine of strategic rivalry with Beijing largely ensured that Washington remained engaged in Southeast Asia, the front line of competition between the two superpowers. The Biden administration continued this competitive framework with China and even ratcheted up the pressure on Beijing by implementing stricter export controls to prevent the flow of critical technologies to the People’s Liberation Army.
However, the second Trump administration appears hell-bent on reversing perceived trade imbalances through unilateral tariffs on partners and allies alike, regardless of the damage to Washington’s strategic partnerships. The United States has meted out some of the highest tariff rates to close allies and partners, including India and Brazil, the latter of which has been a major non-NATO ally since 2019. Both countries have been hit with a 50 percent tariff rate.
Nor has Trump favored close strategic partners or allies in Washington’s competition with Beijing, which was the focus of U.S. policymakers’ attention during his first term. Vietnam, which had seen its relationship with the United States expand significantly under the Biden administration as both sides had a common interest in deterring China’s expansion in the South China Sea, was dismayed when Trump announced a 46 percent tariff rate on Vietnamese exports in April. Hanoi immediately sent a trade delegation to negotiate with the United States and was one of the first countries to land a better rate, with 20 percent on Vietnamese exports and 40 percent on any transshipments through Vietnam.
The two countries signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during then-U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi in September 2023, putting the United States on the same level as Russia and China in Vietnam’s hierarchy of partners. Given the uncertainty stemming from current U.S. policy, Hanoi has warmed ties with Beijing in recent months, with Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Hanoi twice in 18 months and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam traveling to Beijing in August 2024.
One bright spot in U.S.-Southeast Asia policy remains the U.S,-Philippines alliance, which appears stronger now than at any point in the previous decade. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made a sustained effort to court the Trump administration and was the first Southeast Asian leader to secure a meeting with Trump during his second term.
Despite now having a tariff rate of 19 percent, the Philippines still enjoys the second-lowest rate in the region, tied with Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Furthermore, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Hegseth have personally called attention to the bilateral alliance’s importance “to maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”
Throughout the rest of Southeast Asia, however, U.S. influence appears to be floundering. While it is premature to count the United States out in the long term, several data points underscore that U.S. credibility has reached an inflection point, and the Trump administration is compounding its losses with unnecessary mistakes.
In August, the United States and Singapore quietly announced that they had “mutually agreed” to cancel plans for a deployment of Singapore Air Force F-15SG fighter jets at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The deployment was part of the 2019 renewal of the 1990 U.S.-Singapore memorandum of understanding, which covered U.S. access to military facilities in Singapore. Singapore has conducted joint training exercises with the U.S. military since 1980 and relies on the United States, Australia, and India for access to open spaces where its armed forces can train and operate. Canceling the F-15SG deployment in Guam sends a signal that Singapore cannot rely on Washington to share its security concerns and could push it to seek alternative security partners.
Regional commentators were initially upbeat when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim confirmed Trump’s plan to attend the annual ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur. However, expectations suddenly shifted when Trump announced that his attendance was contingent on the condition that he preside over the signing of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia, which engaged in a brief but heated border dispute over the summer.
Trump also sought to pressure Bangkok, a nominal U.S. ally, to recognize his role in brokering a tentative cease-fire between Thailand and Cambodia. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet was quick to thank Trump for his efforts to secure a peace deal and even said that he nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. However, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has rebuffed Trump and refused to acknowledge his mediation role.
Trump’s theatrics put Ibrahim in an awkward position. As ASEAN chair, Malaysia has sought to restore the bloc’s relevance to world affairs by making it an active and inclusive forum. In line with this approach, Ibrahim invited Russian President Vladmir Putin and Xi to attend the October summit. Though neither did, the forum still became an arena of great-power competition when Trump insisted that he would not participate in a signing ceremony if the Chinese were present.
Beyond personality politics, the region has already seen a decline in exports to the United States as a result of Trump’s tariffs. More broadly, U.S. volatility has pushed Southeast Asian states to double down on preexisting efforts to diversify and “de-risk” away from the United States. If existing trends continue, the United States will find its trade with this fast-growing region dwindling further, despite strong interest from the American private sector and consumer demand for Southeast Asian goods.
Regional policymakers are wasting no time pursuing trade agreements with other countries to reshape supply chains so that they are less dependent on the U.S. consumer market. While Trump came away with two bilateral trade deals last week, ASEAN collectively upgraded its free trade deal with China. Chinese Premier Li Qiang used the occasion to contrast Beijing’s approach with current U.S. policies: “Pursuing confrontation instead of solidarity brings no benefit,” he said, adding that “unity is strength.”
Southeast Asian states have also diversified their security partnerships by deepening ties with Australia, India, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom as a hedge against a less reliable and less engaged United States. For example, in October, Singapore upgraded ties with both Australia and New Zealand to a comprehensive strategic partnership in the span of a week.
To begin undoing the damage, the Trump administration should move quickly to fill key positions related to Asia throughout government. The U.S. Senate only confirmed Trump’s nomination for assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Michael DeSombre, in early October, nine months into Trump’s second term. Meanwhile, the United States has no ambassador in Cambodia, Indonesia, or Myanmar, while the Senate has yet to confirm Trump’s controversial nominee for ambassador to Malaysia.
It does not help that Trump shrunk the NSC from about 350 to less than 150 personnel and fired droves of regional experts from the State Department. The administration largely viewed those policy advisors, who honed their expertise on Asia over years of work within the government, as “holdovers” harboring loyalties to previous administrations or members of the “deep state,” who oppose Trump’s ideological agenda.
Thus far, the second Trump administration has done little to signal that it’s taking Southeast Asia seriously, despite repeated statements from senior officials that Washington sees the region as vital to its interests. If Washington wants to reverse declining U.S. influence and remain a trusted partner in the region that will define the 21st century, then the administration has no time to waste.
