Peter Hegseth’s inability to name an ASEAN country underscores the Trump administration’s broader indifference to Southeast Asia, favoring trade protectionism, military burden-shifting, and transactional diplomacy over sustained regional engagement.
U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth at the White House in Washington, U.S. April 6, 2017. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo)
“I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan, and in AUKUS with Australia.”
With this answer, the man in question ticked off all the important buzzwords of relevance to his intended audience in the year 2025, yet failed to answer a fairly nondescript question that one would expect any remotely decent DC operator to know: to name one member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The question came from Senator Tammy Duckworth in a Senate hearing — the answerer in question will soon be appointed to helm the Pentagon under the Trump administration: Peter Hegseth.
There are many excuses that one could invent for Hegseth to mitigate the ignominy of the episode: that he was under significant stress; that he is a “Big Picture” individual, and is thus not privy to unnecessary operational details (though not knowing the fact that Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, is in Southeast Asia - seems fairly damning).
Yet Hegseth is merely the tip of a much larger iceberg. He is by no means the exception when it comes to the worldview of the Trump administration. Indeed, the oblivion and nonchalance exhibited by the newly crowned occupant of the White House towards the rest of the world, especially countries that are not China, Japan, Russia, or India, should come as no surprise to those who have observed his foreign policy record for long — the world is to be carved up into separate poles (of strong powers), and small and medium states must duly comply with the edicts of their more powerful counterparts.
Despite possessing a population of over 680 million and the fifth largest economy in the world, ASEAN nations have long been under-represented in mainstream policy discourse. Even where they are discussed, they are usually analysed through the lenses of great power competition, especially in relation to the South China Sea, or the competing economic tradecrafts and trade regimes of China and the U.S. in the region.
Whilst President Joe Biden had sought to frame American interests in the region through the binary framework of “Democracy vs. Autocracy” (with certain rather dubious choices when it comes to the latter category - indeed, one need look no further than the invitation list for the December 2021 Summit for Democracy for evidence), and double down on integrating his ASEAN strategy into a broader Indo-Pacific vision, his efforts are likely to face an abrupt attenuation and watering-down under the new administration.
(Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP)
What are Trump’s priorities for ASEAN?
Donald Trump will likely take a vastly different approach to the region. Indeed, there are three key features undergirding his approach:
The first is addressing what Trump construes to be unjust, unwarranted, and unproductive trade deficits between the U.S. and select ASEAN economies. Trump has openly declared that his favourite word in the dictionary is “tariffs”. In attempting to lure trade away from ASEAN economies and manufacturing operations back to the U.S., the protectionist hammer will likely target key trade partners in the region, including Vietnam. Whilst re-shoring and de-risking will contribute towards firms relocating supply chains out of China and into ASEAN, such supply chain realignments take time — and may not suffice in offsetting the trade disruptions in the interim.
The second is reducing America’s security and military footprint in the region, in the absence of clear, reciprocal contribution - in financial or military terms - towards the collective security architecture. Whilst the recent meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo suggests that the South China Sea will remain a key point of contention for the U.S. - especially through the lenses of inhibiting what it views as China’s maritime military and commercial ambitions - ASEAN nations should expect more demands and aggressive pushes for them to chip in with investing into defence, militarisation, and security ties in relation to maintaining the regional order.
The third, and perhaps most surprising of implications, is that Trump will not be wary of striking bargains and deals with regimes that had traditionally been typecast as ‘authoritarian’ or falling outside the subset of democratic states. Such transactions will likely be centred around advancing the interests of American companies and industries that Trump - and his closest advisors - views as integral to the Republican base. We should expect more appetite for collaboration over non-renewable, fossil fuel sources of energy, as well as mines producing critical minerals that are of sizeable commercial value. Local initiatives in the climate and renewable transition, on the other hand, would likely be eschewed by American capital and aligned governmental policies from Washington.
What are the key challenges that ASEAN states must tackle?
The first of three challenges concerns the possibility of a reduced American military-defence presence in the region. Whilst the Philippines will remain an integral component of Trump’s regional strategy - specifically with the aim of preventing China from purportedly establishing control over the First Island China, what is far less clear is the extent to which Trump and his team have a holistic South China Sea strategy at large. Some of the more junior members of the Pentagon leadership, such as the Deputy Assistant Secretary with the relevant portfolio, John A. Byers, are known for their “Dovish” views on America’s footprint in the region - pointing to the significant wherewithal wielded by the Chinese military over the maritime region. Nations who are willing to park aside more contentious territorial disputes and focus on economic co-development may welcome the apparent de-escalation in temperature — skeptics, on the other hand, may feel a tad anxious over the disequilibrium and imbalance of powers that would thus emerge. Yet even for those who are wary of what they construe as American politicisation and ratcheting-up of tensions, Trump’s unpredictability and circumventing of conventional mechanisms for diplomatic negotiations should pose cause for concern.
The second challenge revolves around the downstream impacts of the American protectionist regime. Whilst the acceleration of supply chain realignments will favour competitive economies with labour supply or resilient capital concentration in strategic industries - e.g. Indonesia and Malaysia, respectively - others, such as Vietnam and Thailand, may find themselves the victims of punitive tariffs imposed by Trump. Manufacturers may in turn opt to move towards larger ASEAN economies with cheaper costs of production and that take up a greater share of regional manufacturing, thus leaving behind smaller economies that are far more vulnerable to the incipient protectionism. The two-track ASEAN phenomenon - one in which select member economies pull ahead, whilst others struggle - may be further entrenched. How ASEAN preserves and strengthens regional trade integration, as well as facilitating trade creation and diversification for the less high-performing member economies, remains a question to be answered.
At the Indonesia Economic Summit 2025, where I spoke as a moderator, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was touted by many to be a key next step in supply chain integration and harmonisation between various ASEAN member-states. RCEP should and can be leveraged to strengthen infra-ASEAN ties across digital, infrastructural, developmental financing, and educational dimensions - thereby building up the capabilities and resilience of less-endowed states.
The third and final challenge pertains to the prospects of escalation over the Taiwan Strait. It would be impossible - and downright naive - to think that ASEAN states can escape unscathed in the event of a crisis over Taiwan. Former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted in 2023 that tensions over the Taiwan Strait were the “most dangerous flashpoint” in the growing Sino-American rivalry. He is most certainly correct. Under Trump, the U.S. will likely adopt a more mercurial, vacillating, and thus predictably unpredictable approach to the Taiwan Strait.
ASEAN states may not be great powers unto their own, but they do have the right, agency, and thus the duty, to choose wisely how to position themselves. They must prepare for the worst, whilst hoping for the best.
