Douglas H. Paal

Opinion | Faced with Trump 2.0, Asia-Pacific leaders must figure out what they truly want

From support for the US military industrial complex to countering China, leaders must start deciding their trade-offs, bottom lines and no-go areas

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Douglas H. Paal

Published: 5:30am, 11 Nov 2024Updated: 7:08am, 11 Nov 2024

Now that Donald Trump has won a second term as US president, those of you in the Asia-Pacific are undoubtedly swamped with election postmortems, diagnoses of America’s disorders and their effects on your homelands, and prognoses for relations with the United States under an unpredictable leader and his chaotic team again.

My advice is to stay abreast of all that but not take it too seriously. It is time instead, I think, to look inward. What will really matter during the transition to a Trump administration will not be who gets what job in Washington, nor predicting things like tariffs, nor disruptions in the expectations developed during Joe Biden’s time in office.

What will count will be what is important to your nation. Not what is nice to have, not whether you know somebody who really knows someone who might have influence on Trump, not when, how or with whom to engage with the new Trump administration.

Trump is bent on upending people’s expectations, regaining leverage and making America great again. There is precious little anybody outside Trump’s world can do about it, especially before Trump himself knows what it will be.

For Asia-Pacific leaders, things will be different. For years, American leaders have talked about assigning a higher priority to the region due to its dynamism, talent and the global shift in the centre of gravity. But America has repeatedly been distracted by its commitments in the Middle East and Europe.

The space around Trump’s head is abuzz with people seeking favour who want to put China at the top of the list of adversaries, enemies, challenges or whatever he ends up calling them. Beijing and the capitals surrounding China are likely to encounter a qualitative difference with Trump’s administration.