On January 20, 2025, US President-elect Donald Trump officially took office. Shortly after his swearing-in ceremony, Trump signed a slew of executive orders, including:

  • Regarding the overall foreign policy approach, Trump affirmed that the US would pursue the “America First” principle[1], which was immediately demonstrated by the “America First Trade Policy[2]” executive order.
  • Regarding multilateralism and non-traditional security, Trump signed an executive order directing US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement[3] and the World Health Organization[4].
  • Regarding China, Trump signed executive orders: (i) requesting a 75-day extension for Trump Administration to assess the security threat from TikTok[5]; (ii) continue to investigate China's behavior in trade, technology transfer - intellectual property and so on.

The first series of Trump 2.0 executive orders can have many implications for the region:

  • “America First” can impose further pressure on regional countries to “share responsibility”.

The US can increase tariffs on countries with trade surpluses with the US (including regional countries such as China, Vietnam, Japan & South Korea) despite the limitations in the usual surplus-deficit calculation method and the counter arguments to Trump’s usual trade deficit narratives[6][7].

The US can demand allies - partners India - Thailand to further “share responsibility” by stepping up presence in regional flashpoints such as the South Chin Sea (East Sea in Vietnam) or Taiwan Strait. This, on the one hand, helps with the regional balance of power and opens up more opportunities of cooperation for small and middle countries. On the other hand, it can make the overall environment more tense.

  • ASEAN can also be affected when Trump 2.0 tends to prioritize bilateralism and minilateralism instead of multilateralism, and ignore non-traditional security.

ASEAN's centrality could be challenged if Trump 2.0: only pays attention to US minitilateral mechanisms; ignores ASEAN events (as Trump 1.0 did); focuses on bilateral relations with some beneficial ASEAN members instead of the whole bloc.

Trump 2.0's “turning away” from climate and environmental issues could disrupt existing climate-environment cooperation between the US and the region, especially in areas attached to climate issues under the previos administration, such as the Pacific or the Mekong.

  • US-China competition could become more intense and volatile for China and the region.

Although Trump has not immediately banned TikTok and imposed tariffs on China, the US could introduce tougher competitive measures during/after the investigation process. An anonymous source to Bloomberg revealed that Trump might impose tariffs on China at uncertain timing and there would be “meetings and calls” with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the near future[8].

This could increase the unpredictability of the international relations in 2025 and put greater pressure of “choosing side” on small and middle countries.

Translated and edited by NHDD
Photo: AFP

A full text of the Article could be found here

 

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/america-first-policy-directive-to-the-secretary-of-state/

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/america-first-trade-policy/

[3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/putting-america-first-in-international-environmental-agreements/

[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/

[5] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/application-of-protecting-americans-from-foreign-adversary-controlled-applications-act-to-tiktok/

[6] https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/320781-trump-trade-data-proposal-would-defy-common-sense-honest/

[7] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-trade-deficit-how-much-does-it-matter

[8] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-20/trump-seen-sparing-china-targeted-tariffs-on-day-one-of-new-term