Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring a shift in U.S. foreign policy, with significant implications for the Indo-Pacific region. Given the region’s growing importance in global trade, security, and geopolitics, his approach could reshape how the United States engages with key regional players. This shift would likely influence U.S. strategies in managing rising challenges, fostering alliances, and ensuring stability in one of the most strategically vital areas of the world.

Michael Beckley – Introducing the Asia Program’s Expert Commentary Series

I am excited to announce the launch of the FPRI Asia Program’s new Expert Commentary series, designed to provide timely and insightful analysis on the most pressing events shaping the Indo-Pacific region. As the region undergoes rapid transformation, driven by shifting geopolitical dynamics and evolving economic and security concerns, the need for informed and nuanced analysis has never been more urgent. With a new U.S. administration potentially taking a different approach to Asia, the stakes are high for the future of Washington’s Asia policy.

Through this series, the FPRI Asia Program will bring together the perspectives of our fellows to offer short, focused commentary on key developments in the region. Each edition will dive deep into a specific event or issue, offering expert insights on how it may reshape policy and strategy in the Indo-Pacific. From U.S. elections to China-Philippines tensions and the outcomes of regional summits, we aim to provide analysis that addresses the most critical questions in ongoing policy debates. We look forward to contributing to the discourse on these vital issues and are eager to share our perspectives on the changing dynamics of the Indo-Pacific.

Jacques deLisle – More Friction and More Uncertainty: What a Trump Victory Means for U.S.-China Relations

Donald Trump’s victory portends worse and less predictable U.S.-China relations and increased uncertainty for the region. Ties were likely to be worse no matter who won the election. The reset from the fraught relationship that China had hoped for, and to some extent expected, under President Joe Biden did not materialize amid unentrenched friction over trade, escalating restrictions on U.S. technology, and rising tensions over Taiwan. Bipartisan views—although short of a policy consensus—augured a tough, and likely toughening, policy toward China, regardless of the electoral outcome. What else a second Trump term means depends partly on Trump’s preferences (which appear shallow or

inconsistent on many salient issues and overall ambivalent toward Xi Jinping and China), how much he intervenes to shape policy, and who staffs key positions (ranging from traditional Republican foreign policy elites to newcomers more unconventional than in Trump’s first term). Some features of Trumpian China/Asia policy seem clear and likely consequential: a proclivity for trade wars, which will mean friction with China and economic difficulties for regional states enmeshed in the global supply chain, and a transactional approach that shuns shared values and disdains alliances. Such an approach would create opportunities—and risks of overreach—by a more assertive China and a more perilous security environment and, in turn, hard and potentially destabilizing choices by U.S. allies and partners in the region.

Connor Fiddler – The China Hawks Take Charge

As of this writing, Donald Trump is expected to select Rep. Elise Stefanik as United Nations ambassador, Rep. Mike Waltz as national security advisor, and Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state. All three candidates boast impeccable “China hawk” credentials and are likely to advocate for an aggressive military posture, a robust economic security strategy, and closer collaboration with allies and partners.

Leaders in Brussels, Seoul, Tokyo, Manila, New Delhi, Canberra, and other allied capitals should take solace in how Trump is shaping his national security team. Rubio, for instance, spearheaded the bill that would require a president to obtain congressional approval before withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He has also been a steadfast advocate for the Australia-U.K.-U.S. defense pact in the Senate.

Waltz brings his own expertise in alliances to the National Security Council. During his time in Congress, he led the India Caucus, strengthening U.S.-India relations. He has also called for a more assertive military presence in the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

Stefanik has been a staunch proponent of supply chain security. Earlier this year, she called on the Air Force to sever ties with nearly 130 China-based suppliers of critical technologies. She also introduced the Countering Chinese Drones Act, which passed unanimously and banned the use of Chinese-made drones linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

While the position of defense secretary has yet to be filled, Trump’s national security team is already sending a clear signal that the “China hawks” have emerged victorious in the Republican Party’s internal debates.

June Teufel Dreyer – Willing to Engage but Wary

The official Chinese reaction to Trump’s victory was circumspect, with Xi Jinping congratulating the winner while the foreign ministry emphasized that China’s policy toward the United States has been and will remain consistent, based on principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and common benefit. The United States and China must be mindful of their positions as the world’s major power and the top two economies to work for the good of all states. Official media reminded the incoming administration that Taiwan is a red line that cannot be crossed. The message: China will engage with you—but on our terms. Privately, there are concerns about increasing tariffs and the sharp rhetoric of campaign speeches, with one netizen saying it remains to be seen whether America will regenerate or degenerate into name-calling and bigotry. The general assumption is that the strategic rivalry between China and the United States is likely to intensify under Trump.

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein – Is North Korea Celebrating Trump’s Win? 

South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol congratulated Trump in a phone call on November 7, reportedly mentioning his “great victory with the MAGA slogan.” Concerns abound about Trump’s views on tariffs and military cost-sharing with strategic allies like South Korea, but on other issues, Trump and Yoon might see eye to eye. Both are China hardliners, and the similarities in how they sometimes express themselves in public suggest they could get along well on a personal level, a factor that has proven crucial in Trump’s foreign policy.

As of this writing, North Korea hasn’t commented on Trump’s victory. But there is reason to believe a sense of hope might color the atmosphere in the country’s foreign ministry. Ri Il Kyu, the formerly senior diplomat at the North Korean embassy in Cuba who defected to South Korea in late 2023, has said the country hopes to reopen nuclear negotiations with a Trump administration, and that a strategy has been mapped out for such a scenario. The blossoming relationship with Russia has made sanctions relief far less urgent than it was last time Trump and Kim Jong Un met, but normalizing relations with the United States remains a key, long-term foreign policy goal.  

Yong Suk Lee – Trump 2.0 Meets Kim Jong Un 3.0

President Donald Trump’s relationship with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un defied convention and expectations. By the summer of 2018, the two leaders went from exchanging threats and insults to meeting in Singapore. Kim never got what he wanted in his three summits with Trump: sanctions relief and global respectability. Pyongyang’s renewed alliance with Russia and bonding in a coalition of like-minded friends, such as Iran, have been the first positive turns in the North’s geopolitical fortunes since the end of the Cold War. Things have improved dramatically for Kim, and he is not in a hurry to run back to Trump. Kim is forty years of age and a seasoned leader after thirteen years in power. He is probably not looking for a grand bargain to settle differences with the United States, and Trump 2.0 will likely run into Kim Jong Un 3.0, a man who has shown he can solidify power and advance the North’s strategic weapons programs while developing a new arsenal of cyber weapons, and who now is shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield with the country’s former benefactor. North Korea’s price for detente will be steep, and the nuclear genie, long out of the bottle, is breeding at a rapid pace.

Anthony Eames – What a Second Trump Term Means for AUKUS

The Albanese government is projecting confidence in the future of the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership. The trilateral defense pact should benefit from the views of national security advisors to Trump who are expected to take a leadership role in his second administration, such as Elbridge Colby and Robert O’Brien. Their dogged assertions that China should be the all-encompassing focus of U.S. grand strategy lend the necessary strategic rationale to uphold AUKUS commitments. Recent International Traffic in Arms Regulations reforms and bipartisan support for AUKUS in the U.S. Congress has institutionalized the arrangement to a point where a concerted effort at disruption would be required to sink AUKUS.

Below the surface, it might not be smooth sailing. A second Trump administration will likely seek greater investment from Australia in the U.S. defense industrial base, especially in shipyards. Such pressure could create real political difficulty for AUKUS advocates in Canberra if it coincides with Australians feeling the economic pain of Trump’s tariffs. Economic discontent might exacerbate the growing gender gap in Australia’s own politics regarding the country’s alliance with the United States.

Personalities also matter. The strained relationship between Donald Trump and Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, may emerge as a point of distraction. Prospects for AUKUS also took a hit with Trump’s rejection of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had been deeply involved in its venture capital aspects.

These potential pitfalls for AUKUS should be easily managed if the Trump administration genuinely sees China as the pacing threat to U.S. predominance in the Indo-Pacific and broader world.

Felix Chang – Indo-Pacific Reality Check on Security

There has been much consternation in Asia regarding how a second Donald Trump administration could alter the overall direction of American policy in the region. I do not believe that this will occur, at least when it comes to security. It is useful to recall that the Biden administration’s efforts to counter aggressive Chinese behavior in the region originated during Trump’s first administration. Little in his recent campaign comments would seem to indicate a shift. Thus, one can expect that Trump’s second administration will continue to put a greater emphasis on deterrence over persuasion and that many of the measures to deepen defense and security cooperation undertaken by the Biden administration will continue too.

Hence, I believe that the Philippines ambassador to the United States was not expressing heady optimism when he stated his expectation for U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific and support for its treaty ally, the Philippines, to remain steady. That being said, given Trump’s well-known transactional nature, how forcefully those measures are pushed might hinge on how America’s allies react to his economic policies or the tangible benefits America’s allies can provide to Washington in return. Some Indo-Pacific countries have already balked at being forced to choose between their economic and security priorities. But given the current states of the American and Chinese economies, that choice might not be as fraught as one might have thought just a few years ago.

Image: US Navy