Southeast Asia and Trump 2.0(?): Agency Amid Anxiety

The 2024 US presidential campaign is naturally prompting speculation about the impact on Southeast Asia of a second Donald Trump administration, which remains a distinct possibility despite the former president’s recent criminal conviction for falsifying business records. In assessing possible geopolitical consequences, observers should recall that most regional capitals during Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency found ways to use their American ties to advance their own agendas, and relations with the US mostly remained stable or improved. There would be variations in Southeast Asia’s experience during a second Trump administration, but a radically different geopolitical environment is not inevitable.   

Assessments of US-Southeast Asia relations often focus disproportionately on Washington’s performance in advancing its policies rather than regional capitals’ records in promoting their own. Southeast Asian states contribute to the phenomenon through a lack of policy transparency.  Their narratives tend to be long on nonalignment and criticism of America and short on concerns about geopolitics in general and China in particular. This is hardly surprising for small and medium countries living on the periphery of a coercive aspiring hegemon that is also vital to their prosperity. 

Southeast Asian states are realistic in their engagement with Washington. The US is crucial to their prosperity. It is even more important to peace and stability, given the surge in Chinese power and Beijing’s terra-forming, and associated coercive actions, in the South China Sea. Most governments are eager for the US to remain in the region as a balancer. 

Having long found America problematic in one way or another, Southeast Asian countries do not compare Donald Trump’s Washington with an idealised golden era of relations with the US. In the event, no regional state fundamentally redefined its relationship with America during his presidency. US ties with Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia improved, Singapore remained a close US strategic partner, and Malaysia’s cooperation continued, despite Kuala Lumpur’s criticisms of the US. Quiet US diplomacy preserved military cooperation with Rodrigo Duterte’s Manila, and relations with Cambodia cooled in ways that might have happened under any modern US presidency.

Trump himself was off-putting, his trade policies disruptive, and concerns he might compel Southeast Asian states to “choose” between Beijing and Washington were widespread. Nonetheless, his criticisms of China found ready audiences — and not merely in Vietnam.  Some national security elites quietly welcomed the increase in US freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.  For some Southeast Asian countries, the Trump Administration’s deemphasis on human rights and democracy made it easier to deal with Washington.

Should a second Trump administration further reduce American credibility in Southeast Asia, the lowered costs of hegemony would create new opportunities and temptations for Beijing.

Donald Trump’s haphazard adoption of anti-China policies reinforced Southeast Asian concern over Sino-US tensions and American leadership. For many regional leaders, however, casting the deteriorating geopolitical environment as a function of Sino-US rivalry was — and remains — a useful alternative to candour about their own concerns about China.  

In reality, Southeast Asian countries maintained and, in some cases, intensified security cooperation with the US under Trump. Moreover, as regional states sought to expand their security relationships, their partners of choice overwhelmingly were US allies and friends: Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, and European Union countries. Most Southeast Asian governments have carefully avoided dependence on Chinese arms imports — despite their adequate quality, moderate price, and absence of human rights conditions.   

Southeast Asia’s experiences during the 2017-2021 Trump administration, however, are no guarantee a second Trump term would be the same. While the region never appeared to be of particular interest to Trump personally, his obsession with trade deficits alone might put it in his policy crosshairs. Even if it does not, the imposition of a global 10 per cent tariff on all states and much higher ones for China, plus broad restrictions on US-origin technology, could damage the global economy, with huge consequences for Southeast Asia. 

The geopolitical worst-case outcome of a second Trump presidency for most Southeast Asian leaders, however, would be a major drawdown or wholesale withdrawal of America’s security presence from the region. However much Washington might have pressed them to choose between America and China, an outright US security departure would materially constrain regional choices.

Nonetheless, even were an isolationist Trump to withdraw America’s entire security presence from the region – an unlikely outcome – capitals would not be without recourse. 

First, they have a long record of maximising their interests in dealing with Beijing. They would continue to draw on that toolkit: compromising where possible, conceding where unavoidable. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian countries have experience in navigating variations in the US security presence, most notably at the end of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. 

The law of unintended consequences would also still apply. Vietnam and Malaysia are among the surprise beneficiaries of the Sino-US tariff and chip wars. The region’s eleven states would tirelessly be on the lookout for similar opportunities under Trump 2.

Finally, Southeast Asian countries would likely pursue even closer security cooperation with US friends in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. These states would be eager to tighten strategic links with ASEAN members, as, indeed, they have increasingly done since the first Trump Administration made them think more seriously about managing Beijing without America. 

One cannot assume, however, that Southeast Asia’s geostrategic environment would be as benign during a second Trump Administration as during the first.  The region can manage erratic US behaviour to some extent, but China today defines that extent.  Beijing’s enforcement of its claims to the South China Sea has demonstrated its readiness to move boldly when it perceives risks as manageable. Should a second Trump administration further reduce American credibility in Southeast Asia, the lowered costs of hegemony would create new opportunities and temptations for Beijing.

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