Continuing policy initiatives and the resulting turmoil in Washington in the early weeks of the new Trump administration substantially add to deep uncertainty and angst in the Indo-Pacific about the status and likely outlook for international relations and the regional order. Unfortunately, the initiatives provide few clear paths forward for regional order and stability, as the Trump administration’s moves further complicate existing contested regional dynamics influenced by a wide range of conflicting determinants.
Trump Initiatives
Tremendous changes are underway in U.S. government policies and practices. Waves of presidential orders aim to radically reduce the size, cost, and impact of U.S. government organizations, although some of these policies are being challenged in court. Tens of thousands of government workers have lost their jobs. Foreign aid and other spending abroad have been frozen. The FBI, CIA, and other agencies protecting the United States at home and abroad are being downsized. Defense spending is reported to be reduced as well.
In terms of foreign policy, the United States has withdrawn from the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement and the World Health Organization, and shunned the G-20 foreign minister’s meeting because of a dispute with the host government, South Africa. President Donald Trump has prominently threatened Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Panama, and Columbia with harsh measures if they don’t meet his demands. His administration’s drive to deport undocumented migrants to their home countries adds to friction with other states.
Heading the list of major policy changes is the reversal of past U.S. policy, going back to the origins of NATO over 75 years ago, to strongly support European allies against the threat of the expanding Soviet Union and now Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Trump’s outreach to Putin and rebuke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and supporting remarks by administration foreign policy and defense leaders, signal an end to U.S. leadership in supporting Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression, as demonstrated by the U.S. decision to vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion. Instead, Trump and his lieutenants are seeking a Russia-U.S. accord on how to end the Ukrainian war without Ukraine or NATO countries included in the discussion.
A thaw in Russia-U.S. relations, an anticipated China-U.S. summit, purported reductions in U.S. defense spending, announced and anticipated tariffs, and increased U.S. demands for greater burden sharing by allies and partners – what this all means for future U.S. relations with Indo-Pacific and the overall regional order is subject to wide-ranging speculation, but in the end remains to be determined.
The Contested Indo-Pacific Order
What is clearer is that the Trump administration’s actions worsen the challenge of determining clear policy options and strategies in an Indo-Pacific order already deeply in flux and subject to conflicting pressures with no clear path forward. It’s important to remember that the region remains largely at peace, unlike Europe and the Middle East, and thereby may warrant less immediate international attention, suggesting that the predicament worsened by the Trump initiatives will not be resolved soon.
Surveys over the past year have shown widespread concern among regional governments and commentators over fraught relations and contested issues. Most notably, the clashing security, economic, and governance interests of the world’s leading powers – the United States and China – are driving unrelenting rivalry in Asia, the geographic epicenter of global China-U.S. competition. This great power rivalry has emerged as the main determinant of current regional dynamics.
Many assessments by experts see the China-U.S. rivalry as steering regional dynamics, creating a bipolar Asian order similar to the framework that prevailed for decades during the Cold War. In contrast, other analysts see China as ascendant and forecast the establishment of a new China-centric order, recalling the order that prevailed in Imperial China in the previous millennium.
The norms, standards, and frameworks that influence and determine the Asian order in the 21st century are also in flux because of reasons that go beyond the China-U.S. competition. For one, the prospects of continued growth of the export-oriented economies of the Indo-Pacific are now challenged by the increasing tariffs and trade restrictions imposed by the United States and other developed countries, responding to the negative impact on their economies and societies of the free trade practices during the era of globalization that immediately followed the end of the Cold War. Those governments are increasingly following China’s lead in adopting strict protectionist and industrial policies and practices to protect and foster their countries’ economic growth in ways that impede the market access previously enjoyed by the many export-oriented Indo-Pacific economies.
Other significant challenges to the regional order include North Korea’s persistent provocations amid its buildup of nuclear weapons and the protracted civil war in Myanmar. Both remain far from resolution and are important drivers in the calculations of many regional governments. Meanwhile, key regional governments in South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines rule sharply divided polities with very different foreign policy priorities, adding to uncertainties in how future elections will substantially shift their foreign policies.
Russia’s bold invasion of Ukraine has raised regional anxieties that China, Russia’s main ally, might do the same to militarily acquire Taiwan. The Ukraine war has sharply divided the Indo-Pacific – with Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia cooperating with NATO and the United States against Moscow and its backer China, while India, Vietnam, and others have sought to preserve good relations with Moscow. The ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have remained largely separate from China-U.S. rivalry, but Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza has turned Muslim-majority societies in South and Southeast Asia against the United States.
The power and influence of regional powers also are determinants of regional order. Japan and India are more important in regional affairs than any other power apart from the United States and China. They influence the region in various ways separate from China-U.S. rivalry. When the first Trump administration rebuffed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade and economic agreement, a deal that the U.S. had previously championed, Japan took the lead in successfully creating the follow-on Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration pushed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pull back from Russia and support Ukraine, but Modi persisted in India’s close ties with Putin’s Russia. Middle powers like South Korea and Australia employ bilateral and minilateral mechanisms among other ways to foster their interests, while Southeast Asian nations – with leading power Indonesia employing a newly dynamic foreign policy under President Prabowo Subianto – use the ASEAN-led regional groups among other means to foster their priorities.
Going Forward
Against this complicated background, specialists and commentators assessing the impact of Trump 2.0 on regional dynamics would be wise to acknowledge the limits of such projections. The current situation poses a predicament for those seeking to undertake a meaningful assessment or discern viable policy options that will support a stable regional order. Those who seek certainty will find only poorly grounded assessments based on a complicated mix of determinants with some subject to abrupt change.
In particular, the longer-term durability of big changes in Washington is in question as they move the United States sharply away from past practices on a new and not yet clearly defined path amid considerable controversy at home and abroad.
