The State of Southeast Asia Survey 2025
Singapore is Not Buying into Trump 2.0
Joanne Lin
This commentary draws on the perspectives of 242 respondents from Singapore who participated in the State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey.

The State of Southeast Asia Survey 2025
Joanne Lin
This commentary draws on the perspectives of 242 respondents from Singapore who participated in the State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey.
Sarang Shidore
Sarang Shidore suggests that deeper intra-ASEAN coordination could help the region cope amidst uncertainties surrounding US foreign policy under Trump 2.0.
Daljit Singh
As the US steps away from the rules-based order it helped create, smaller countries need to step up to the plate to maintain it.
Surachanee Sriyai
Myanmar resistance groups depend on Starlink to circumvent government controls. But this can also be its Achilles heel.
Melinda Martinus
Under Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia is expected to further distance itself from traditional Western alliances — a trend initiated during Jokowi’s administration — by prioritising partnerships within Asia, particularly with China for trade and investment, and strengthening regional cooperation through ASEAN and BRICS.
Jayant Menon
The implications of the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariff policy on Southeast Asia are still unclear, as certain questions need to be answered.
Mirza Sadaqat Huda
Trump’s rent-seeking foreign policy pertaining to energy and critical minerals will force Southeast Asian countries to do what they least desire: making a choice between China and the US.
Phan Xuan Dung
Suspending USAID programmes risks undermining years of work building trust between the former enemies and helping victims of the Vietnam War.
Stephen Olson
Southeast Asia was spared in the initial flurry of Trumpian trade actions, but Trump’s introduction of expansive and unprecedented non-trade issues into trade relations will inevitably entangle the region.
Hoang Thi Ha
US President Donald Trump's rhetoric in past weeks has sparked a chain reaction of alarm in Southeast Asia. If his words become deeds, the region's uneven but evident bedrock of trust in the US, carefully built up since World War Two's end, could slowly turn to dust.