Southeast Asia Navigates Trumpian Storms: Disruptions, Recalibrations and Adaptations

INTRODUCTION

The second Trump administration has unleashed unprecedented disruptions across all aspects of US international engagement, upending long-standing assumptions about American foreign policy since World War II. The postwar consensus – that the US role as the principal guarantor of global peace, prosperity, and development was aligned with its national interests – has fundamentally unravelled. Core pillars of US global leadership in free trade, development aid, multilateral institutions, and progressive values such as human rights, democracy, open borders and sustainability, have been rolled back both at home and abroad.

These shifts have had global repercussions, with Southeast Asia especially affected given its deep economic, security, and developmental ties with America. This article examines the disruptions of the second Trump administration’s first year, Southeast Asian responses and adaptations, and implications for the region’s strategic environment.

TRUMP 2.0: THE FORCE OF CHANGE

Southeast Asia is not a priority region for the Trump 2.0 administration. Washington has been preoccupied with securing peace breakthroughs in Ukraine and the Middle East, alongside an intensified focus on the Western Hemisphere. Yet the torrents of change unleashed by Trump 2.0 have rippled through the region in profound ways. Southeast Asia is also exposed to Trump’s domestic “revolution”, including immigration crackdowns, mass layoffs of the federal bureaucracy, and a pervasive campaign against liberal or “elite” institutions, including parts of academia and the civil service.

The first major disruption came with the closure of USAID, a cornerstone of US development assistance, and a sharp reduction of US foreign aid to its lowest level in the last five years (Figure 1). For decades, US aid has helped build the region’s soft infrastructure across environmental protection, public health, education, good governance, civil society, and vulnerable communities’ empowerment. Between 2015 and 2023, the US provided 22% of humanitarian aid, 19% of environmental protection funding, 12.5% of health assistance, and 11% of government and civil society support in Southeast Asia, largely through grants. USAID’s closure abruptly halted numerous projects, including de-mining in Laos and Cambodia, anti-malaria and refugee health services in Myanmar, and climate-resilience efforts in the Mekong, causing job losses among local aid workers and potentially raising public-health and environmental risks. These consequences were starkly exposed by the absence of US aid during the critical rescue window after the Myanmar earthquake in March 2025.

Beyond these immediate effects, the closure strikes at the heart of America’s role as the global leader on sustainability, inclusion, and good governance. Under Trump 2.0, the values of sustainability, diversity, equality and inclusivity (DEI) are recast as ideological liabilities to be jettisoned. Trump has derided climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated” and energy transition as “the green scam”. Against this backdrop, the US withdrew from the Biden-era Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) for Indonesia and Vietnam, alongside a pledged US$3 billion in support.

The second major disruption came on the trade front. On 2 April 2025, Trump threatened steep tariff hikes on all Southeast Asian economies, particularly Myanmar (44%), Vietnam (46%), Laos (48%), and Cambodia (49%). While subsequent negotiations led to partial rollbacks, they remain well above pre-Trump 2.0 levels (Table 1), alongside a 40% tariff against transhipment. Furthermore, targeted sectoral actions pose an even sharper challenge for regional exports, including a 50% tariff on steel, aluminium and copper; 25% on wooden furniture; up to 3,521% on solar panels from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam; and a threatened 100% tariff on pharmaceuticals.

Available trade data suggest that Southeast Asian economies have been resilient to tariff shocks, with exports to the US continuing to grow in 2025 and US investment diversion from China into the region remaining robust, as Southeast Asia still offers a cost-effective alternative despite volatile US tariff policies. Vietnam, the region’s largest exporter to the US, posted a record US$151.85 billion in exports to the US, accounting for 32% of its total export value and increasing by US$32 billion from 2024, partly due to substantial front-loading before the August implementation of new tariffs. However, the headline figure obscures a difficult reality at the firm level: many local companies have renegotiated contracts at lower prices with higher compliance costs, squeezing profit margins.

Tariffs are now entrenched as both a baseline feature of the US’ foreign trade and a foreign-policy weapon. The post-“Liberation Day” negotiations exposed the coercive nature of the US’ new trade policy, with Southeast Asian countries being compelled to offer substantial concessions, including rolling back tariff and non-tariff barriers for American products and aligning more closely with US regulations on economic security, particularly where China-related export controls and investment screening apply (Table 2). This approach undermines the Most-Favoured-Nation principle that underpins the multilateral trading system, marking a departure from rules-based trade towards a transactional order, where access to the US market depends on bilateral concessions to Washington rather than on uniform WTO commitments.

Even where Southeast Asian countries have secured “deals” that reduce tariff rates, these fall well short of standard trade agreements. They are executive understandings rather than legally binding treaties, lacking legislative ratification and enforceable dispute-settlement mechanisms. Particularly, broad clauses allowing tariff re-imposition on trade, economic or security grounds give Washington wide discretion to reapply pressure, institutionalising uncertainties and reinforcing US leverage while depriving partners of meaningful recourse through multilateral trade remedies. As far as trade with the US is concerned, the multilateral trading system has ceased to exist; Southeast Asia’s market access to America is thus rendered inherently conditional and persistently vulnerable.

On diplomacy, Trump shows little interest in Southeast Asia, and his rare engagements – such as his push for a Cambodia-Thailand peace deal – were driven by his ambition for a Nobel Peace Prize. His approach is personality-centric, untethered from any coherent regional strategy. While delegating strategic and defence matters to his cabinet, he asserts final authority on issues with political resonance, including tariffs and their linkage to broader foreign policy goals, imposing his own preferences and often overriding institutional processes. This creates sharp policy swings and deep uncertainty, leaving regional states to navigate a US shaped more by Trump’s impulses than by a defined strategy.

Trump’s direct engagement with Southeast Asian leaders has been limited and issue-driven, and focused on his personal priorities rather than a commitment to regional diplomacy. These have included phone calls on tariff negotiations, a bilateral meeting with Philippine President Marcos Jr. in Washington D.C., and his attendance at the October 2025 ASEAN Summit, where he presided over the so-called “Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord” between Cambodia and Thailand. While heavily touted by the White House, the subsequent resumption of fighting between the two countries exposed the limits of Trump’s peace-brokering influence.

Trump’s presence at the 2025 ASEAN-US Summit was a diplomatic win for ASEAN, but with caveats. His attendance, conditioned on the peace-signing ceremony, underscored a transactional logic in which ASEAN functioned not as a strategic partner but a stage showcasing Trump’s peace-brokering credentials. This dynamic was also reflected in the ASEAN-US joint vision statement, which focused on issues Washington defines as immediately salient, such as countering transnational crime, rather than geopolitically significant topics like maritime security and freedom of navigation. The 2025 experience suggests that Trump is unlikely to attend future ASEAN summits unless an issue arises that he sees as directly advancing his personal or political interests.

Trump’s transactional “America First” approach has focused US attention on two new fronts in the region: securing critical minerals and targeting transnational cyber scams. The region holds sizeable deposits of nickel, copper, tin, and rare earths, essential for defence and advanced manufacturing industries. Washington has linked critical minerals cooperation to its trade deals with Cambodia, Malaysia, and Thailand, with a similar framework expected in the prospective US-Indonesia deal in early 2026. Of particular note is Myanmar – the world’s third-largest producer of rare earths. The Trump administration is reportedly weighing options to engage actors controlling these deposits, whether these are the ruling junta or ethnic armed organisations. If pursued, it would further underscore an “America First” realpolitik policy that prioritises resource access over political values.

The Trump administration also prioritises combating transnational crime in Southeast Asia, as region-based scam operations cost American citizens at least US$10 billion in 2024. While the US has long engaged in this area through USAID technical assistance, law enforcement capacity-building, and support for the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons with a victim-focused approach, Trump’s approach is, in contrast, more securitised. This includes creating an inter-agency Scam Centre Strike Force, deploying agents on the ground, pressuring regional governments to dismantle scam networks, and prosecuting and seizing assets of criminal actors. The tougher stance has prompted more decisive regional responses, including the Myanmar junta’s raids on scam compounds and Cambodia’s arrest of criminal kingpin Chen Zhi.

SELECTIVE CONTINUITIES AND PRAGMATIC RECALIBRATIONS

Trump started his second presidency with a shock-driven strategy, deliberately destabilising established norms and structures in order to generate leverage and extract concessions from allies and partners. After unleashing the initial “shock and awe”, US engagement with the region has gradually settled into a new normal, with certain selective continuities and pragmatic recalibrations that tempered some earlier disruptions and offered limited relief to the region.

Continuity has been most evident in security and defence, where Trump’s imprint is less direct. The administration has maintained a baseline regional presence through cabinet-level engagements. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attended ASEAN ministerial meetings. Hegseth also paid bilateral visits to several Southeast Asian countries. In contrast to Trump’s tendency not to frame China through a geopolitical lens, Rubio and Hegseth have largely retained previous administrations’ approach, portraying China as a strategic competitor and seeking to deepen regional security partnerships. At the 2025 ADMM-Plus and Shangri-La Dialogue, Hegseth said “the threat that China poses is real”, citing its “intimidation and unlawful actions” in other states’ sovereign waters, and asserted that “any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the South China Sea and the First Island Chain by force or coercion is unacceptable”.

The 2025 National Security Strategy sheds light on this dynamic: while prioritising the Western Hemisphere – termed as a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine – it nonetheless commits the US to a “vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific”, including revitalising the defence-industrial base, boosting military investment by the US and its allies to heighten deterrence along the First Island Chain, and preventing any power from dominating the South China Sea. Framed as “peace through strength” to safeguard US interests rather than the defence of the rules-based order or US-China strategic contest, this posture signals not a US retreat from Asia but a narrower, highly interest-driven approach to regional engagement.

As far as trade with the US is concerned, the multilateral trading system has ceased to exist; Southeast Asia’s market access to America is thus rendered inherently conditional and persistently vulnerable.

The strengthening of the US-Philippines alliance underscores this continuity and strategic signalling in Washington’s Indo-Pacific policy. While uncertainty persists over whether the US would come to the Philippines’ defence in a South China Sea contingency, the alliance has been reinforced throughout 2025, including the establishment of Task Force Philippines to enhance interoperability, training, and contingency preparedness in the South China Sea.  Hegseth’s inaugural visit to Manila in March 2025 reinstated US$500 million in military aid despite Trump’s scepticism of foreign assistance. In December 2025, Trump signed the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), which earmarks US$2.5 billion for the Philippines from 2026 to 2030 – the US’ largest defence investment in the country since the Cold War, signalling a long-term commitment to the alliance. The US has also deployed advanced capabilities, including the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), and expanded bilateral and plurilateral exercises in the Philippine Sea with Manila and other regional allies/partners.

On the trade front, a new normal has been established with substantially higher tariffs – the lowest baseline rate of 10 per cent applies only to Singapore and Timor-Leste. Even for Southeast Asian countries having concluded trade deals with the US, Washington retains broad discretion to adjust tariffs unilaterally, offering temporary relief on selected products to ease costs for American consumers. For instance, smartphones, computers, and certain electronic devices – major Southeast Asian exports – were exempted from reciprocal tariffs. Rising living-cost pressures also prompted Washington to remove tariffs on over US$1 billion worth of Philippine agricultural exports. Washington has signalled similar reductions for some Vietnamese products, though their scope and durability remain unclear, underscoring that such flexibilities are applied at US discretion at any time.

Washington’s selective recalibrations have also been extended to foreign aid, which has been sharply reduced and redirected to align with “what is best for the US and our citizens”. Following a 90-day freeze in January 2025, US assistance to the region resumed in limited, targeted forms, with the Philippines becoming the first recipient of post-review aid in July 2025. Support was also reinstated for Mekong water-resources monitoring and basin management, de-mining and selected health, environmental, food, and agricultural programmes in Cambodia, and war-legacy issues in Vietnam, marked by a new memorandum signed during Hegseth’s November 2025 visit to Hanoi. Overall, US assistance to Southeast Asia in 2025 totalled US$701 million, a 63.49% decrease from 2024 (Figure 2).

Trump’s unorthodox, gain-maximising foreign policy – stripped of ideological, moral, or normative constraints – has also generated surprisingly positive outcomes for some Southeast Asian governments. Cambodia has arguably benefited the most: its “Angkor Sentinel” exercises with the US resumed in 2025 after eight years; a US navy visit to the Ream Naval Base is on the table; Trump’s mediation of the conflict with Thailand elevated Phnom Penh’s leverage vis-à-vis Bangkok; and its 19% tariff rate, while punitive, remains lower than Vietnam’s 20%, albeit that Hanoi is often viewed as a more strategically valued partner for the US. The Myanmar junta, meanwhile, was hoping for a reset in Washington’s Myanmar policy. The Trump administration’s recent termination of Temporary Protected Status for Myanmar nationals, citing “progress” in the country’s governance and stability, suggests that transactional resource access to the country’s vast rare-earth reserves, rather than democratic credentials, may now shape US calculations.

The broader takeaway is sobering. Under Trump 2.0, a Southeast Asian country’s value to Washington is no longer anchored primarily in its geopolitical significance in the US’ strategic competition with China, but in shifting, circumstantial, and often commercial interests as Trump defines them. This reflects not a coherent regional strategy, but a contingent and expedient approach driven by the president’s impulses and by short-term deal-making. No country should assume that past strategic capital guarantees future favour.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN RESPONSES: ADAPTATION AND DIVERSIFICATION

Southeast Asian responses to Trump 2.0 disruptions largely mirror the coping strategies adopted by other US allies and partners, with adaptations shaped by their asymmetric exposure and limited leverage vis-à-vis Washington. As a CSIS report notes, the region’s behaviour broadly follows five interrelated approaches.

First, leaders have prioritised direct engagement with Trump, recognising the highly personalised nature of US foreign policy under Trump 2.0. Vietnam illustrates this clearly: General Secretary To Lam moved quickly to contact Trump after the “Liberation Day” tariff announcement and sought to fast-track trade negotiations through leader-level channels.

Second, some governments have employed flattery and transactional inducements to court Trump’s personal preferences. Cambodia’s nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and Vietnam’s fast-tracking of a Trump Organisation real estate project are notable examples. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim went to considerable lengths – despite his BRICS leanings and his increasingly critical rhetoric against the West – to appease Trump, including making some jarring trade concessions.

Third, the region has adapted to Trump’s emphasis on “the show” by prioritising performative diplomacy. This has manifested in highly publicised meetings, loosely framed commitments, and ambiguous leader-level exchanges, enabling both sides to issue divergent readouts. This coping mechanism satisfies Trump’s demand for visible “deal-making” while cushioning sensitivities at home. Thailand’s Industry Minister Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana acknowledged this approach when he stressed that the trade agreement with the US “is not a binding treaty”, amid domestic push-back.

Under Trump 2.0, a Southeast Asian country’s value to Washington is no longer anchored primarily in its geopolitical significance in the US’ strategic competition with China, but in shifting, circumstantial, and often commercial interests as Trump defines them.

Fourth, Southeast Asian states have intensified efforts at economic and strategic diversification to hedge against US unpredictability. Vietnam has actively sought to diversify export markets beyond the US, including in Central Asia; Indonesia concluded a long-negotiated free trade agreement with the EU; and ASEAN has expanded engagement with other groupings such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and BRICS.

Finally, Southeast Asian governments have largely defaulted to self-help, pursuing individual trade deals with Washington rather than collective bargaining through ASEAN, due to the immediacy of US tariff pressure and Washington’s preference for transactional country-by-country negotiations. Divergent national interests and uneven exposure to US tariffs also incentivised these states to secure preferential terms to gain relative advantage vis-à-vis one another. This behaviour reflects a sober reality that ASEAN lacks both the political cohesion and institutional mandate to negotiate effectively with a highly transactional US administration.

These coping strategies underscore a pragmatic and adaptive, albeit fragmented, regional response – one that prioritises short-term damage control while cultivating long-term diversification in an increasingly coercive US policy environment. They also reveal sustained demand signals for US engagement in Southeast Asia: despite the Trump 2.0 disruptions and volatilities, Washington remains important to the region’s security and economic calculus; for now, there is no credible substitute. Claims that US retrenchment has created a vacuum readily filled by China oversimplify far more complex regional realities.

Particularly on the trade front, tighter US market access does not mean China will absorb more Southeast Asian exports; instead, it has accelerated the influx of Chinese goods into regional markets, intensifying competitive pressures on domestic industries. Against this backdrop, regional leaders continue to actively court US engagement. At the November 2025 ASEAN Summit, Singapore’s Prime Minister underscored “America’s vital role as a partner for peace, stability, and prosperity in our region” and thanked Trump for his leadership in the Middle East and efforts to de-escalate tensions between Cambodia and Thailand. Anwar Ibrahim expended considerable political capital to secure Trump’s attendance at the ASEAN summit. Thailand, too, despite long-standing objections to third-party involvement in its border dispute with Cambodia, allowed Trump to play a mediating role in the November 2025 ceasefire. Going forward, while Southeast Asia has thus far demonstrated considerable adaptability and resilience, Trumpian storms are far from over and are likely to intensify. The US’ capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and its push to acquire Greenland have revived deep anxieties over Washington’s renewed push for regime decapitation against unfriendly states, the blatant violation of national sovereignty, and the resurgence of great-power spheres of influence. This increasingly permissive environment for the law of the jungle – reminiscent of 19^th–century resource-driven and expansionist imperialism – renders the international system far more precarious for smaller states, including those in Southeast Asia.

---

This is an adapted version of ISEAS Perspective 2026/6 published on 26 January 2026. The paper and its references can be accessed at this link.