Driven by fears of Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and its Indo-Pacific allies and partners are racing to “Trump-proof” a series of defense initiatives before the year-end in a bid to make any rollback a difficult proposition.
Efforts to institutionalize the numerous bilateral and multilateral tie-ups clinched by Trump’s election rival over the last 3½ years are already in full swing, with nervous allies welcoming deepened ties with open arms amid an increasingly fraught international security environment.
The examples are widespread.
Before the end of 2024, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul aim to formally seal a historic trilateral security partnership after the Biden administration helped its mutual allies warm a chilly relationship that had fallen to its lowest point in years.
NATO, pushed by Washington, is now planning to set in stone military support to Ukraine "for as long as it takes,” after concerns about fatigue in the U.S. over the war prompted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his team to repeatedly note that failure in the conflict would have serious implications for East Asia.
At the same time, U.S. allies such as Japan, Australia, the Philippines and others are boosting cooperation among themselves for fear of a possible lapse in U.S. security commitments under Trump.
The long-term nature of these initiatives reflects concerns that Trump would follow the same unpredictable and often unilateral and transactional approach to foreign and defense policy that he took in his first term. This includes his tendency to make decisions without consulting allies, potentially undermining collective security efforts.
More specifically, the worries revolve around a potential push by a second Trump administration to undo or restructure Biden-era agreements. This could include a resumption of his erratic approach toward nuclear-armed North Korea, a dangerous escalation of tensions with China and an apparent willingness to use democratic Taiwan as a bargaining chip.
Allies would also be concerned about any U.S. rapprochement with Russia, demands for higher burden-sharing contributions and efforts to restructure trade agreements to make them more favorable to the United States.
Partners also fear a retreat from international organizations in favor of great power politics that undermine the agency of middle or smaller powers. Those concerns were amplified by Trump earlier this year, when he said he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries not living up to nonbinding defense spending commitments.
The key issue for U.S. allies and partners is that so much of their own foreign and defense strategies is predicated on the policy direction of the White House.
"Trump’s comments about not defending NATO allies that don’t meet spending targets and his comments about ending the Ukraine-Russia conflict in a day worry EU members as much as Kyiv," said Stephen Nagy, director of policy studies at the Yokosuka Council for Asia-Pacific Studies.
In the Indo-Pacific region, allies also worry about Trump’s transactional approach to Taiwan, as well as his previous lack of interest in Southeast Asia — not to mention territorial disputes in the flash point East and South China seas, he added.
Chase Blazek, Asia-Pacific analyst at U.S.-based geopolitics and intelligence firm RANE, said the reason why Trump’s reelection prospects are having such an impact is because the 78-year-old doesn’t mind angering the U.S. political establishment on either side of the aisle.
To U.S. partners in Asia, this means the prospect of unpredictability and policy inconsistency, which are tough to swallow when Asian policy goals — especially when considering rising tensions with China and North Korea — require “long-term policy horizons,” he said.
Although Trump is a critic of the U.S. alliance system, it is important to note that he hasn’t aimed to completely dismantle it, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.
Instead, he pushed for American allies such as Japan to spend more on their own defense and contribute more toward cost-sharing, something Tokyo ultimately followed through on.
However, his veiled threats to withdraw U.S. troops from both Japan and South Korea, along with his more general criticism of military alliances, have threatened to create tensions and upend bilateral relationships.
“Trump's view of U.S. alliances follows a transactional logic in which Washington’s commitment level depends on how much allies invest in collective security and whether favorable trade and economic ‘deals’ can be struck,” said Sebastian Maslow, an international relations expert at the University of Tokyo.
In his first term, this kind of "protection racket" approach to alliance management accelerated efforts among allies and partners to consolidate bilateral and multilateral cooperation and increase the resilience of their own security cooperation.
Biden’s stance on alliances has been the exact opposite, reflecting the ever-shifting nature of U.S. foreign and defense policy priorities, which experts have described as “waves of relative engagement and neglect.”
Under Biden, the U.S. has sought to bring Indo-Pacific allies and partners closer together in trilateral and quadrilateral groupings to build up what it calls “collective capacity” in a bid to tackle shared security concerns.
By doing so, Washington hopes to reduce redundancies and coordination challenges in bilateral security ties to counterbalance Chinese ambitions and deter aggression in the region.
Experts say that under Biden, the U.S.-led regional security architecture has gradually become a “lattice-like framework” centered on the United States and Japan, rather than the traditional “hub-and-spokes” framework with Washington as the hub.
Nevertheless, fear of another pendulum swing has prompted U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines to follow a two-pronged approach that has seen them swiftly deepen and formalize security agreements and arrangements with the United States while insulating themselves from perturbations in the White House by shoring up relationships with other partners.
“Allies are seeking to establish more solid and lasting defense arrangements now, fearing that a second Trump term might bring more uncertainty and less reliable U.S. commitment to existing alliances,” said Misato Matsuoka, an associate professor at Teikyo University.
While Trump is unlikely to break key U.S. agreements on day one if he is elected, it is fair to assume he would reexamine many relationships in light of his own very bottom line-focused view of international affairs.
The U.S. president has significant authority via executive orders, but “there are still constraints and costs associated with scrapping deals or dismantling institutions, particularly those that have bipartisan support,” a former U.S.-Japan alliance manager said on condition of anonymity, noting that the Biden administration and allies are banking on this caveat.
Trump, however, could weaken such commitments not only through executive actions but also via rhetoric, as he shifts U.S. foreign policy priorities elsewhere, Matsuoka said.
“Influenced by his ‘America First’ mindset, he could reduce overseas engagements and take actions that could undermine alliances,” she said.
To mitigate uncertainty and prepare for a scenario where U.S. support might be less reliable, Tokyo, Manila, Seoul and Canberra have been swiftly expanding and fortifying regional defense frameworks with like-minded partners both in Asia and beyond.
Manila, for instance, has sought to expand its network of security partners, signing pacts with the European Union, India, Australia, Vietnam, Brunei and the United Kingdom while aiming to seal visiting-forces agreements with Japan, Canada and France.
Still, absent U.S. involvement, allies such as Japan and the Philippines would struggle to bring together the military capabilities required to deter and counter potential adversaries, especially as these countries forge their own security partnerships.
A key reason is that U.S. allies largely rely on American resources, not only in terms of military presence and equipment but also financial and technological support, all of which underpin many military and defense initiatives.
“The U.S. ‘going it alone’ is a perennial fear for Tokyo,” said Robert Ward, a Japan expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Japan, for its part, will be hoping that late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s investment in his relationship with Trump — coupled with the country’s ambitious defense reforms — will be enough to reassure him that Tokyo is pulling its weight if he succeeds in securing a second term, Ward added.
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