Donald Trump’s emphatic return to the White House has upended global geopolitics in unexpected ways. In stark contrast to his first term in office, where he spoke of “American carnage” at home and bullying foreign allies and foes into submissions, Trump took a relatively more subdued, if not pacifist stance in his second inauguration address. Not only did he shun directly criticizing America’s adversaries and rivals, but Trump consciously presented himself as a “peacemaker” who ends devastating conflicts that erupted under his predecessor’s watch across the Eurasian landmass, from the snowy plains of Ukraine to the Eastern Mediterranean in Gaza and Lebanon and the Greater Middle East.
To be fair, Trump has been just, if not more tough on traditional allies by, inter alia, threatening to seize Greenland (from Denmark) and the Panama Canal, while openly coaxing Canada into joining the United States and renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” into the “Gulf of America.” This is nothing short of a 21st century version of America’s notorious “Monroe Doctrine,” namely the unabashed assertion of American hegemony in the Western hemisphere to the exclusion of all other external powers as well as any semblance of autonomy among regional states.
But Trump has shown considerable restraint in approaching geopolitical theatres beyond the Americas. To the delight of isolationists at home, he has extended an olive branch to both Russia and Iran, which have expressed their openness to negotiating potential détente with Washington. Most crucially, the new American president has been on a charm offensive towards China, inviting chairman Xi Jinping to his inauguration; reversing the ban on China’s most-celebrated social media app, TikTok; and recalibrating his earlier threat to impose massive tariffs on Chinese products.
Just as crucial, however, is Trump’s appointment of so-called ‘restrainers’ to key positions. In the Pentagon, he has placed neo-isolationist figures in charge of critical regions such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia, signaling American openness to negotiating grand bargains with major adversaries. As if that weren’t significant enough, Trump has seemingly also empowered tech-billionaire Elon Musk to strengthen communication channels with adversaries to, at the very least, de-escalate tensions. As a result, frontline allies such as the Philippines are worried about potential strategic abandonment and, accordingly, are also exploring de-escalation mechanisms with China, especially in the South China Sea.
Strategic Restraint
“President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe,” Trump wrote in a social media post shortly before re-occupying the White House. “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together,” he added, underscoring the importance he attaches to stable ties with the Asian superpower. His direct threats to NATO allies such as Denmark and Canada coupled with conciliatory messages towards China has spooked frontline Asian allies such as the Philippines.
“We don’t really know what Trump will do…The U.S. has been an isolationist country twice in history [before World War II]… and they can end up isolationist again, and that is the fear here, [that Trump] will agree with China to divide the world,” former Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, an influential figure and one of the architects of the Philippines’ arbitration case in the South China Sea warned in a recent conference in Manila.
“What if tomorrow Trump says we can’t blame China for [taking over the] Spratlys [in the South China Sea],” the influential magistrate warned, underscoring Filipino fears over the American president’s transanctionalist and isolationist streak. “Trump is very unpredictable, nothing is set in stone,” former Senator Antonio Trillanes, another influential political figure, also recently warned.
Aside from Trump’s own statements and congenial unpredictability, Asian allies such as the Philippines are also worried about some of the key appointments to top defense positions. Chief among them is the new Pentagon’s new deputy assistant secretary for South and Southeast Asia in the Department of Defense, Andrew Byers. A formerly obscure analyst, and a nonresident fellow at Texas A&M University, he co-authored an influential piece just months before his appointment, where he explicitly argued for a clear-eyed foreign policy that consciously avoids confrontation with China. Accordingly, he advocated for a “cooperation spiral with China,” whereby the Pentagon will “remove U.S. military forces or weapons systems from the Philippines in exchange for the [Chinese Coast Guard] executing fewer patrols [in the contested areas of South China Sea]."
In a separate co-authored piece for Foreign Affairs last year, Byers argued that a second Trump administration would be radically different and more pragmatic in its grand strategy. “In his second term, Trump’s realist instincts would find fuller expression…[b]ut [Trump] will likely withdraw from at least some current U.S. commitments in the greater Middle East,” Byers argued, “And he will likely focus most of his attention on Beijing, concentrating on ways to outcompete China while avoiding military conflict and a new cold war.” Similarly-minded figures such as Michael Dimino, the new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, have also occupied key positions and have similarly argued for détente with American adversaries in the name of strategic restraint.
Preparing For Contingencies
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is also running his own parallel diplomacy with a focus on strategic restraint and direct engagement with American adversaries. The world’s richest man has become so influential that some have described him as a ‘shadow president.’ This may be an exaggeration, or fleeting phenomenon, but the reality is that Musk has already been playing a key foreign policy role, allegedly reaching out to both Iranians and Russians to de-escalate tensions. More crucially, Musk has massive investments in China and warm ties with Chinese leadership, but seems also broadly sympathetic to Beijing’s views on hot button issues such as Taiwan.
In response, major Filipino strategists such as former Admiral Rommel Ong have openly warned that Musk could end up convincing Trump to downgrade assistance to frontline allies such as the Philippines as part of a potential grand bargain with Beijing. Since the Philippines is already in the midst of a festering maritime dispute with China, it’s in a far more vulnerable position than other key and more capable U.S. allies in Asia, namely Japan or Australia.
Accordingly, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration is hedging its bets by directly opening communication channels with China. Recently, no less than Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. offered to remove American weapons systems, most notably installed the Typhon mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines, as part of a de-escalation mechanism with China.
“Let’s make a deal with China: Stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and we’ll return the typhoon missiles,” Marcos told reporters when asked about potential Philippine-China grand bargains to de-escalate tensions. “Let them stop everything they’re doing and I’ll return all of those.”
In the past, China asked the Philippines to remove the state-of-the-art missile system, which is capable of heating targets in southern Chinese provinces, for “inciting geopolitical confrontation and an arms race.” Meanwhile, the Philippines conducted its 10th Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea (BCM) with China in the southern city of Xiamen in Fujian.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro met Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong to discuss ways to explore long-term conflict-management mechanisms and, if possible, revive frayed ties in recent years. Unsure about America’s commitment under a second Trump, key allies are stepping up their own diplomacy by directly reaching out to China, even if they maintain their strategic autonomy and remain determined to defend their core sovereign interests.
