Trump Plays Nice With Asian Allies Stung by Repeated Threats

Mark Carney in Gyeongju, on Oct. 31. Photo by SeongJoon Cho /Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloo

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(Bloomberg) — After months of tariff threats and brow-beating on defense spending, American allies in Asia had ample reason to be wary of President Donald Trump. But he ended up using a three-nation tour of the region to hammer home a clear message: The US still has your back.

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Trump said the US was “wedded” to South Korea, addressed some of its concerns about a $350 billion investment pledge and approved its request for nuclear-powered submarines. He told Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that she can ask him for help with “anything.” And he avoided watering down the US commitment to Taiwan in a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while his defense chief, Pete Hegseth, voiced concerns about Beijing’s naval activities around the island democracy.

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The US president also sought to mend ties with Southeast Asian nations that have leaned closer toward Beijing as Trump took aim at their economic growth engines — signing trade agreements with Cambodia and Malaysia and frameworks for deals with Thailand and Vietnam. Hegseth, traveling separately in the region, signed a 10-year defense deal with India and announced that military exercises with Cambodia would resume for the first time in eight years.

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“It’s much better than what I expected — the trust, the friendship and the commitment to enhance relations,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said of his discussions with Trump, speaking to Bloomberg while displaying a presidential coin given by the US leader moments earlier.

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Yet for all the assurances, nations across the Asia-Pacific region must still reckon with a Trump 2.0 reality that features much costlier access to the American market, and the unpredictability inherent in his approach to international relations. And China’s leaders also notched milestones of their own last week.

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Xi marked his first visit to South Korea in 11 years, had his first formal sit-down with a Canadian leader since 2017, and met Japan’s new conservative premier. China’s president called for stable supply chains and deeper economic integration with the region, while his Premier Li Qiang expanded a trade pact with Southeast Asian nations already deeply reliant on the world’s second-biggest economy.

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“The Americans have to show that they are sort of dialing down the hostility and attempting to build constructive relations if they want to please their audiences in Southeast Asia,” said Bill Hayton, an associate fellow with the Asia-Pacific program at Chatham House, a London-based research group, who has written several books on Asia.

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The sometimes-truculent US president tilted toward charm, pageantry and protocol on his swing through Asia. 

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In Malaysia, where he attended a gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he briefly danced with local performers and waved US and Malaysian flags to the delight of onlookers. In Japan, he made a joint visit with Takaichi to a US aircraft carrier, where the nation’s first female leader pumped her fist into the air as troops cheered. In South Korea, he set aside the latest tensions with Canada to have a “very nice conversation” with Prime Minister Mark Carney. And at the top of his meeting with Xi, he refrained from his usual practice of engaging with reporters, turning to the business at hand.

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Still, Trump’s attention to the region doesn’t amount to “full-spectrum engagement,” Hayton added. “It doesn’t compare with what the Chinese side are offering.”