President Donald Trump has achieved a ‘miracle’ in under 100 days. He suceeded in breaking diplomatic and trade relationships with neighbours like Canada and Mexico that took hundred of years to nurture. His unilateral tariffs have upset many including China, Japan, South Korea, and the ASEAN countries.

Washington’s relationship with ASEAN after the tariffs were announced has not been smooth sailing. At the heart of the problem lies deepening mistrust: the ASEAN nations are wary of America’s shifting policies, its heavy-handed demands for military and political alignment against China, and its tendency to stick its nose into their domestic governance.

The strategic, security and political disagreements far outweigh mere trade statistics, and blunt economic threats will only harden ASEAN’s instinct to hedge, rather than to join, with Washington.

The tariffs have accelerated Southeast Asia’s pivot toward China and weakened Washington’s position in the region without Beijing firing a shot, rhetorical or otherwise. While trade imbalances are a real concern for Washington, tariffs alone can’t cure the broader cracks in relations or the geopolitical tensions in the region.

Political stability, economic prosperity of their respective societies and the geographical proximity of ASEAN states to China are strategic considerations that every state must account for when they relate to China. Similar consideration goes to the presence of many economically prosperous ethnic Chinese in their societies when they formulate policies towards Beijing.

ASEAN was never set up as a platform to deal with trade wars like the present crisis with the US. By imposing these hefty tariffs, Trump has sent a clear message to its leaders to downgrade economic and political relations with China and buy more American products and services. The threat does not go down well with ASEAN.

The tariffs aside, broader US strategic concerns should be non-economic in nature. Washington has been wooing ASEAN countries to support its rivalry with China in the region and elsewhere without much success. Subscribing to a “One China Policy,” ASEAN — except for the Philippines — mostly finds US military support for Taiwan inadvisable.

After the tariffs were announced, China’s influence in ASEAN has grown even faster, and the shrinking of US influence has made Trump’s boast to make America great again look silly.

The stability of global trade and supply chain is critical to achieving his MAGA plan. Yet he paid little attention to this. By the time he grasps the nuances and dynamics in international trade, the damage would have been done.

In 100 days in office, Trump has behaved very much like an emperor without clothes. His reign of terror has unsettled foes and friends alike. Close allies like Japan and Canada have started dumping American treasury bonds, driving yields up sharply from 3.9% to 4.5% in a couple of days, further compounding the trade imbalance and adversely affecting the US financial sector.

But for the steady hands of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, the stock markets would have crashed. The US dollar took a dip, and the market recovered slightly only after Trump withdrew the threat to remove Powell and undertook damage control mechanisms including his most recent statements to reduce tariff on cars following a push from the industry.

Trump’s sudden U-turn after days of uncertainty has given China the upper hand. He is in a trap of his own making. It is likely that China, an authoritarian country, can outlast the US, whose democratic voters are already rising in anger. On 20 April, tens of thousands of people attended 1200 demonstrations in every one of the 50 states. In addition, the need by American manufacturers for crucial raw material exports from China used in electronics, defence, and electric vehicles is going to become acute, exacerbating anger in the US manufacturing sector.

Poorly advised, Trump thought he could weaponise tariffs to make America great again. Instead, he has made the US, in the eyes of many, an unreliable and hostile power. He was not helped by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s swing through Asia, during which he mainly blustered about building pressure on Beijing during the trade war, rather than shoring up any of the US’s badly frayed alliances, severely damaged by the US’s precipitous withdrawal from scores of health and social assistance, information, and climate change programs and others.

Trump’s obsession with trade deficits has skewed his overall comprehension of the strategic importance of the ASEAN region. Nonetheless, what lies ahead is a six-million-dollar question. While tariffs may strain ASEAN-US ties, abandoning Washington entirely would leave ASEAN more vulnerable economically, strategically, and politically to the very forces it seeks to balance.

True strategic strength lies not in choosing between the US and China, but in maintaining a careful balance that preserves economic freedom, political autonomy and regional unity.