What a second Trump term could mean for Southeast Asia

As relations between the United States and China have chilled and bilateral tensions have risen in the past four years over issues ranging from control of advanced semiconductors to Beijing’s support for Moscow, Southeast Asian states have played a delicate game.

With the exception of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who essentially has taken sides with the United States despite blowback from China, other major Southeast Asian countries have attempted to maintain their traditional approach of hedging between the two great powers.

So, while Vietnam signed a deal with the Biden administration upgrading the U.S.-Vietnam relationship, it immediately pivoted by hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping and upgrading the China-Vietnam relationship, too. Similarly, while Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto oversaw increasing security links to the U.S. as defense minister in the second Joko Widodo administration; he made his first overseas trip to China as president-elect.

But the days of playing it both ways may come to an end, if Republican Party nominee Donald Trump wins a second term in the U.S. presidential election this November. A second Trump administration could raise tensions between Washington and Beijing to the point where even Southeast Asian governments, long skilled at the balancing game, may find it difficult to avoid taking sides. Trump is currently tied with or just trailing Biden in most national polls, but the former U.S. president has maintained a lead in most of the pivotal “swing states” for months.

A second Trump administration is unlikely to focus much on Southeast Asia itself. In his first term, he did forge personal bonds with some Southeast Asian leaders, like former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. In general, though, Trump placed a relatively low priority on the region. In addition, his nationalist approach to trade — one that represented a broad range of Americans who have turned against such trade relations — was in sharp contrast with the economic integration occurring across East Asia. In this vacuum, major powers like Japan and China led instead. Trump has given many speeches in the 2023-2024 campaign season and talked a lot about China. He has rarely mentioned, if at all, what his future approach to Southeast Asia would look like.

Trump has made bold promises about U.S.-China policy that, if enacted, would transform the world. It is wrong to dismiss some of his statements as just campaign bluster. As Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times has shown, historically, most presidential candidates, once elected, have actually tried to put into practice most of the major promises made on the campaign trail.

Trump has pledged to institute major protectionist measures regarding trade with China. While generally proposing a new U.S. tariff of 10% on all imports, he suggested slapping even higher tariffs on China. He also has said that he will significantly increase efforts to pressure and incentivize multinationals to close their operations in China.

These actions alone could cause intense blowback from Beijing and greatly impact the global economy. One senior China specialist with close ties to Trump dismissed these concerns, simply noting that China was not a market economy under Xi Jinping and dismissed any broader worries about tough U.S. economic action.

At the same time, the Trump campaign has relied on advice from some of the biggest China hawks. Many of these experts want to wind down U.S. support for allies in Europe and focus U.S. defense more heavily on Asia, particularly on ramping up the defenses of Taiwan and more openly embracing the island.

And while Trump did not follow through on all of his pledges to punish China during his time in the White House, he was more aggressive than prior presidents to demonize Beijing and cast the bilateral relationship as one of outright competition. (Rising anger at China is, to be fair, now an increasingly bipartisan view in the United States.)

But in his first term, Trump’s failure to fully follow through came in part because he stumbled into office. He did not, according to many reports, expect to win the 2016 election and took time to impose his views and plans on the government and find advisers who would carry them out.

This time around, Trump-affiliated organizations and think tanks have already created a sizable personnel roster who could step in immediately in a second term and would loyally carry out his foreign policy wishes. They also have drafted clear and lengthy policy papers on a range of domestic and international issues, including China.

These two changes — a clear plan for a second Trump administration and a coterie of loyalists ready to start from day one — will likely make him much more effective at achieving his goals in a second term, including his very hard-line stance on China.

Unlike most U.S. presidents in the past few decades, who understood the diverse interests of many nations in Asia, Trump has often been infuriated by governments that try to maintain close ties with both Washington and Beijing. Nowhere is this anger more likely to manifest itself than in his views of Southeast Asia, since other parts of the region, like Northeast Asia, Australia and even India, contain powers that also are increasingly skeptical of China’s economic and military actions.

Along with trying to keep the Philippines firmly in the U.S. camp, a second Trump administration would likely put immense pressure on states like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and possibly others to go along with U.S. efforts to push multinationals, including those based in Southeast Asia, to leave China and move their supply chains to the U.S. or at least to Southeast Asia.

He likely would apply other types of pressure on key Southeast Asian partners, pledging to curb defense cooperation or assistance unless they promised to follow America's lead in regional security. On the other hand, Trump, focused heavily on a belief that virtually all foreign countries are unfairly trading with the U.S., also would be less shy in a second term on imposing tariffs on Southeast Asian states themselves that are major exporters to the United States.

It is impossible to imagine that, if Washington ramps up pressure on Southeast Asia, China would not do the same, making it finally impossible for Southeast Asian states to avoid choosing sides.

And despite great confidence among American policymakers from both parties, the U.S. might not win if countries are forced to choose. China is by far the dominant economic power in the region and increasingly provides the infrastructure for the region to function. A bullying approach usually does not work in Southeast Asia, and even under Biden, Southeast Asian states seem unhappy with a perceived U.S. disengagement from the region.

For instance, in the 2024 State of Southeast Asia survey, an annual report by the Singaporean think tank ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute that polls Southeast Asian opinion leaders, a slim majority said that if forced to align with either China or the United States, they would pick China. And if Trump more clearly pushes them to take a side, while also considering imposing tariffs on major Southeast Asian exporters, he is unlikely to win Southeast Asian states to his side.

That report, however, is unlikely to have much impact on Trump’s Asia policy. If the former president stages a successful comeback, he and in response Xi Jinping, are likely to put Southeast Asian states in a kind of "us-or-them" bind they have not faced since the era of the Indochina wars.