Southeast Asia low priority for Donald Trump in event of US election win: report

Regional countries that have benefited from the US-China trade war could face trade barriers in a second Trump term, the Lowy Institute says

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Then Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, US President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Asean summit in Manila on November 13, 2017. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:05pm, 16 Aug 2024Updated: 5:06pm, 16 Aug 2024

Southeast Asian countries are expected to be a low priority for former US president Donald Trump should he return to the Oval Office and could even encounter trade protectionism from Washington, according to a new report from the Lowy Institute.

Trump might not have any time for the region if he were re-elected while countries such as Vietnam which had been major beneficiaries of the relocation of tech supply chains from China prompted by the US-China trade war would be wary of being targeted with new tariffs, findings by the Sydney-based institute released on Friday show.

“Southeast Asia will not be a focus for a re-elected President Trump, which may allow other parts of the US system, including Congress, State Department, and US Indo-Pacific Command, to drive US engagement,” the institute’s Southeast Asia Program director Susannah Patton said.

“On the issue of rebalancing alliances – a focus for Trump – no Southeast Asian country is likely to be in the frame.”

Patton’s assessment is one of several analyses in a collection put together by the Lowy Institute on what a second Trump term would mean for the Asia-Pacific region and global issues such as climate change and the Ukraine war.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un speaks as he stands with then-US President Donald Trump south of the Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea, in the Joint Security Area in the DMZ on June 30, 2019. Photo: TNS

Trump’s apathy towards the region was reflected in his promise to end the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), once hailed as a revival of the American economic pivot to Asia to compensate for Trump pulling the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal, Patton added. The TPP was later renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).