Kudos to President Donald Trump! He thinks he has solved the security problems in Europe and the Middle East. His ideas for peace by in Gaza via force and land grabbing, however, have not augured well with key powers in the region. The Arabs felt they have been betrayed by Trump who gave Israel carte blanche to deal with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, for example.
The members of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have this time refused to be pushed around by Washington.
Unlike the Europeans, the Arabs are not capitulating. Under pressure, the British has raised its defence spending by 2.5 % of the GDP. Immanuel Macron is, at time of writing, in the White House meeting with President Donald Trump. He will also be under pressure to hike up his defence budget.
Germany just elected Friedrich Merz from the Centre-right Christian Democratic Union and its sister party won 28.6% of the vote. By trumping the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, considered extremist by some, he has retaken mainstream politics. Amidst raising fears of a divided Europe and a combative Donald Trump who made peace with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine behind the European backs. Merz, on course to be the German Chancellor, promised to rebuild a strong Germany. Besides his concerns over immigration, the economy and the return of Trump who has been, according to him, indifferent to the fate of Europe, Merz wants Europe to stand up to Trump. He plans to set up a new regional security architecture to replace NATO; without the US military umbrella, NATO will be toothless.
Like Europe, Southeast Asian countries are also reshaping their security architecture with the return of Trump. His first term combined a mix of economic confrontation with China with erratic diplomatic behaviour that unsettled many in the region. There is no reason to think that won’t continue or grow more fraught although his immediate foreign policy focus is on Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, Canada, Panama and Greenland.
While Washington could be frustrated with the Southeast Asian nations for their strategic ambiguity or neutrality and their close ties with China, uppermost in the region is regime survivability amid big power competition. Over the years, the countries in the region have learned to navigate the uncertainties in an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape to stay afloat.
Trump is likely to be indifferent towards ASEAN as a regional institution, preferring to deal with the member states more than with the institution per se. During his first term, Trump, unlike President Barack Obama who attended all ASEAN summits, attended only one summit in Manila that also hosted the APEC summit.
Trump views some ASEAN member states as free riders benefiting from US deterrence against China without paying for it. He is likely to scale back security commitments to these countries; if he does, it could hurt American interests in the long run as they would give them the much-needed pretext to gravitate further towards China for security and economic rationale.
Weighing the benefits and risks of engaging with Washington and Beijing will be a challenge that regional leaders will likely succeed at, as did their predecessors who managed the quarrels including conflagrations like the Vietnam War. As a result, Malaysia, which holds the ASEAN chairmanship this year, is taking advantage of Trump’s preoccupations elsewhere, however temporary, by seeking to protect the region from Washington’s hot breath — and likely riling the administration — by attempting to augment ties with other regions as insurance, announcing a joint summit in May with China and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Trump’s anti-China rhetoric is likely to be ignored by recently elected leaders. Anwar, Premier Hun Manet of Cambodia, Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia, Singapore’s Lawrence Wong, Paetongtarn Shinawatra of Thailand and To Lam of Vietnam are new faces not easily swayed by demands to disengage from Beijing, the region’s largest trading partner and natural king of the hill, which has invested heavily in developing the infrastructure of the region via its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Infrastructure projects.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr could be the only exception as he seeks more military support from the US and its allies to roll back Beijing’s assertive policy in the South China Sea. It is uncertain how Trump will react to Marcos’ insistence that Washington honour the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty that obligates the US to defend the Philippines in the event of an external armed attack (read China).
Known to be sceptical of multilateral commitments, Trump could just throw allies like the Philippines and others under the bus, if they fail to take more responsibility for their defence as he did to Ukraine. As a businessman, he could also offer to sell them more military assets. Alternatively, he may demand reparation in kind as he did to Ukraine valued at US$500 billion worth of strategic minerals.
Donald Trump hates free riders.
While nothing is certain, the US under Trump 2.0 may well deprioritise the South China Sea to cut a deal with China – if Beijing offers him strong economic incentives and some face-saving solutions not to let the war over critical technology get out of control, for example. There is a possibility of a trade-off: limiting US military presence in exchange for trade deals.
Trump is also likely to be upset with the countries in South-East Asia that join BRICS, as Indonesia just did earlier this month. He has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on BRICs countries that replace the US dollar as reserve currency. Malaysia and Thailand have also sought membership of BRICs.
Trump is also frustrated with ASEAN member states cozying up to China whether through the Belt and Road initiatives, security deals or diplomatic alignments with BRICs; for example. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos are already deeply tied with China. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are moving closer to Beijing to promote their national interests.
ASEAN’s resistance to taking sides in the China-US rivalry is likely to frustrate Trump. Nonetheless, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore have longstanding US ties that they want to preserve, if not elevate.
Call it strategic ambiguity or a hedging option. They will probably find ways to play both sides!
BA Hamzah
Hamzah BA writes regularly under on geopolitics, Asean and maritime security and law.
Professor, National Defence University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
BA Hamzah was formerly Director General of Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA).