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 any 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 United States 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 GOP nominee Donald Trump wins a second term in the U.S. presidential election this November. A second Trump administration could raise tensions between the United States and-China to the point where even Southeast Asian countries, long skilled at balancing, may find it difficult to avoid taking sides. Trump is currently tied with or just trailing President Joe Biden in most national polls, but Trump 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, Trump 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 trade—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 made few, if any, mentions of a future approach to Southeast Asia.

Trump has made bold promises about U.S. China policy—promises that, if enacted, would transform the world. It is wrong to dismiss some of these promises 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 they 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 ten percent on imports from any country, he has suggested slapping even higher and 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 have major impacts on the world 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 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 viewpoint 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 on the government and find advisors 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 Trump’s 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 Trump much more effective at achieving his goals in his second term, including his very hardline 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 countries that try to maintain close ties with both the United States and China. Nowhere is this anger more likely to appear 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, moving 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 cut down defense cooperation or assistance unless they promised to follow the United States’ lead in regional security. On the other hand, Trump, focused heavily on a belief that virtually all foreign countries are unfairly trading with t America, also would be less shy, in a second term, to impose tariffs on Southeast Asian states themselves that are major exporters to the U.S.

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 U.S. 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 side, while also considering imposing tariffs on major Southeast Asian exporters, he is unlikely to win Southeast Asian states to his size.

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 the kind of us-or-them bind they have not faced since the era of the Indochina wars.