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

“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.

“On economics and trade – Southeast Asia’s highest priority – the region will have low expectations. The best-case scenario for US economic engagement under Trump would be a maintenance of the status quo in which the US private sector is active but with little by way of supporting economic statecraft.”

As the instigator behind the US-China trade war in 2018, Trump could also increase protectionism towards countries like Vietnam whose trade surplus with the US had grown steadily, Patton said.

Such a protectionist stance against Washington’s Asian partners would not be new. In the 1990s, Washington and Tokyo were on the brink of a trade war when the US tried to reduce its trade deficit with Japan, with American trade representatives demanding quotas on sensitive products, particularly Japanese cars.

On China, Lowy Institute’s senior fellow for East Asia Richard McGregor said Chinese leaders were likely to see a Trump victory in the November election as a political advantage as it could lead to a further decline of US influence. Other analysts outside of the Lowy Institute have also reached a similar conclusion.

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