Will Trump Maintain the East Asian Power Balance?

Uncertainties about the Trump administration’s strategic policies on Asia have increased sharply in the wake of the US president’s actions relating to the Middle East, Ukraine, Panama and his tariff blitz, which have been eroding trust and confidence even among US allies and friends. How far will Trump take his narrow pursuit of ‘America First’ policies in Asia? Will he undermine the post-World War II alliance system in Asia? What does the all-out trade war with China portend? The tariffs imposed on the US’ Asian allies are geopolitically significant, as these tariffs could weaken Asian economies when the US is pressing the same countries to spend more on defence.

There are different moving strands in Trump’s outlook and worldview that will bear on his decisions. There is a strand which says that America has, within its borders, everything it needs and can be self-sufficient if it re-industrialises, presumably with the help of tariffs and pressures on other countries, which he says have been “ripping off” the US. A powerful military, with an effective anti-missile defence system that he wants to build, can protect the US homeland from other powerful states. In this worldview, foreign entanglements and big wars are seen as foolish and wasteful enterprises, though Trump would not hesitate to attack weak foes to gain concessions and demonstrate his machismo and America’s power.

There is also the businessman’s propensity to make deals: Trump seems to believe that security problems, especially between great powers, can be resolved by making deals in which economic inducements play a large part. Hence, security allies and partners in this region worry about what a US ‘grand deal’ with China might entail. Could it mean some form of US strategic retrenchment from Asia in return for economic benefits? A major strategic retrenchment could leave East and Southeast Asia under a Chinese sphere of influence.

Add to these factors the advice of his cabinet and advisers. Will those among them, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Elbridge Colby in the Defence Department, who believe in alliances and military power to deter China and maintain the balance of power in Asia, be able to sway Trump? Trump has hardly used the terms “balance of power” or “military deterrence” in his speeches. Does he appreciate that if China becomes the dominant power in Asia, the most vibrant economic region of the world, it could marshal economic and military resources to pose a threat to America? That was precisely the strategic spectre that led the US to enter the first and second world wars to prevent hegemonic dominance of Europe and East Asia, by Germany and Japan, respectively. 

Outside the government, there are also the so-called “restrainers” among Trump’s MAGA Republicans who have his ear, like Laura Loomer, who worry that the China hawks could lead the US into war with China, like how the neoconservatives led then president George W. Bush to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

…Trump would probably not want to be seen as the president who lost Taiwan and Asia on his watch.

Yet, doubts about the president’s strategic posture towards East Asia may be a wrong reading of Trump, who often acts on instinct but probably understands that China is the top challenger to US pre-eminence and needs to be restrained. After all, Beijing has featured front and centre in his security and economic policy moves, as his administration’s actions on Panama and Greenland show. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama and warned Panama’s president on 2 February 2025 that Washington would take “necessary” measures “if Panama did not immediately take steps to end what President Donald Trump sees as China’s influence and control over the Panama Canal”. On 31 January, Rubio had said that Trump desired to “buy” Greenland for national security reasons because of growing concerns about Chinese activity in the Arctic region.

Trump’s steep (145 per cent for now) tariffs on China reflect a deep-seated belief that China has harmed the US the most. Thus, some of the economic advantages that enabled China to do so must be rolled back. Trump probably sees this as a strategic as much as an economic issue. The high tariffs proposed on some Southeast Asian countries could be due to China using them to transship goods to America. In a recent CBS News interview, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the purpose of the global tariffs was to prevent China from transshipping goods from other countries to the US.

Finally, Trump would probably not want to be seen as the president who lost Taiwan and Asia on his watch. His hero, President McKinley, for one, brought the US to Asia by taking possession of Hawaii and the Philippines in the nineteenth century.

Meanwhile, the status quo continues in East Asia; Trump has not paid much attention to this region despite his rhetoric, apart from levying tariffs. He has let his team of China hawks manage it. The Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in Washington DC in January 2025 reiterated the four countries’ commitment to strengthening a free and open Indo-Pacific and looked forward to the next meeting in India. AUKUS is on the same track as before: the Australian Defence Minister said in February that his country had made its first US$500 million payment to the US under the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal. In late March, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Philippines and Japan to strengthen alliance cooperation against what he described as “Chinese aggression”.

While one cannot be sure given his unpredictability, it is more likely than not that Trump will seek to maintain the power balance in Asia.

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