A drastic shift in US policy has knock-on effects for the whole world. After US President Donald Trump was elected to his second term, but before his inauguration, there was great uncertainty about what was in store. In Southeast Asia there was concern over implication to trade and security, especially surrounding the US-China relationship.

To respond strategically to the US administration's actions on international relations and trade, it is essential to have a good-enough model on what its goals are. 1. The traditional "guns vs butter" perspective on US tariff and other foreign policy actions is that economic efficiency is what everyone aims for, ideally, but we are sometimes diverted by, say, security considerations. Is that a useful model of the world now? I think no longer. In today's reality, the US administration might well view China as its no-compromise strategic adversary. But that administration is also lashing out at others (the EU, Japan, and other long-term friends and strategic allies) who might actually be helpful to the US in contending with China's hegemonic rise. The US's approach to geostrategic competition is both focused and unfocused, both razor-sharp narrow and flailing wildly.

The aggressive US tariffs under President Trump signal a broader unravelling of the global economic order. For Southeast Asia, the fallout cuts across trade, security, and domestic stability, forcing governments to rethink long-held assumptions about economic alignment and strategic neutrality. Our experts at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) weigh in.

Now facing tariffs rates as high as 65%, China could be excluded from the US market more so than ever before, as the substitutability of Chinese products has been greatly diminished given the US’s tariffs on all countries. However, academic Gu Qingyang notes that the macroeconomic impact on China will be limited as it has been systematically reshaping its external economic ties, particularly reducing its economic dependence on the US.