Roundtable: The Trump presidency and Southeast Asia.

AuthorIzzuddin, Mustafa
PositionDonald Trump

As in other parts of the world, Donald Trump's victory in the November 2016 US presidential election came as a major shock to Southeast Asia. Few observers had seriously countenanced a Trump win, and what it might mean for Southeast Asia, the wider Asia-Pacific region and the liberal world order. Many, perhaps most, had expected Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to emerge as the victor, and thus, by and large, to see a continuation of the policies implemented by President Barack Obama, including his signature "pivot" to Asia, and Southeast Asia in particular. Regional shock quickly gave way to anxiety, even alarm. Given Trump's vitriolic rhetoric during the campaign, what would the new administration's approach be to regional security issues such as the South China Sea, ASEAN-led forums, defence and military diplomacy, and multilateral trading arrangements?

Shortly after Trump's victory, the editors of Contemporary Southeast Asia commissioned nine leading regional experts--Catharin Dalpino, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Satu Limaye, Yuen Foong Khong, Ja Ian Chong, Walter Lohman, Natasha Hamilton-Hart, William Tow and Evi Fitriani --to consider the potential implications for Southeast Asia, its people, governments, security arrangements and economic growth prospects. Although the new administration had only been in office for a few months, drawing on Trump's discourse during the campaign, and some of his early appointments, our nine experts were able to identify several key themes that will impact Southeast Asia over the next four years. These include: the management of US-China relations and the extent to which trade and security tensions might spill over into Southeast Asia; whether middle powers such as Australia and Japan might have to assume a greater burden for regional security in the face of China's rising power; what America's stepped-up campaign against the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) will mean for Southeast Asia, especially the Muslim-majority states; and what the Trump administration's seeming aversion to multilateralism, both in terms of political relations and trade arrangements, means for ASEAN and its ten member states.

Three key preliminary observations can be discerned at this juncture. First, as Trump has a penchant for deal-making, transactionalism may well redefine the nature of America's working relationship with ASEAN under a Trump presidency. Underpinning this transactional...

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