During his week-long tour of the Indo-Pacific, President Donald Trump at first blush accomplished what he had set out to achieve. From attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur, to overseeing a ceasefire agreement signing between Thailand and Cambodia, and meeting with Japan’s new prime minister, Trump was welcomed by leaders across the region and signed deals to secure US interests, most notably in critical minerals. The much-anticipated meeting with China’s Xi Jinping also led to a truce between the world’s biggest economies, with an agreement to pause the escalating trade war for the next twelve months. But the question remains whether Trump’s Asia tour has led to greater clarity about US strategy in the region moving forward, and the way forward for the United States and its key allies to cooperate on shared interests. Chris Estep assesses the Trump administration’s defense priorities, while Connor Fiddler analyzes the US vision for Asian defense. Don McLain Gill examines future relations between the Philippines and the United States. Michael Kugelman provides a cautious outlook of US-India relations, while Troy Stangarone offers insight into Korea’s assessment of hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.  

Chris Estep—Where Do Trump’s Indo-Pacific Defense Priorities Go from Here? 

President Trump’s trip to the Indo-Pacific—his first since taking office again—saw trade and economic issues dominate the agenda. His meeting in South Korea with President Xi of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) unsurprisingly garnered intense scrutiny from the global press. Meanwhile, developments in defense cooperation with US allies and partners barely made the front pages, except for Trump’s vague announcement that Washington will support Seoul’s efforts to build nuclear-powered submarines. 

In short, Trump’s engagements across the Indo-Pacific offered a snapshot of how his disruptive approach to trade is rewiring the regional economy. His trip did not, however, offer much of a glimpse into the US government’s regional defense priorities—or how those aims measure up alongside competing priorities in other regions. 

Foreign travel by any American president matters. Preparing for presidential trips abroad can generate rare momentum inside the US government toward major announcements: new initiatives with partners, solutions to barriers preventing closer cooperation, or new public expressions of mutual commitment between allies. But what matters most of all is establishing a clear strategy, funding priorities commensurate with their importance, and delivering strong results through effective implementation. 

Four developments in the coming months will reveal far more about Trump’s Indo-Pacific defense priorities than his recent trip to the region.   

First, will the forthcoming National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy—both rumored to direct unprecedented US emphasis on the Western Hemisphere—maintain the two previous administrations’ stated focus on deterring PRC aggression? 

Second, if the past is prologue, the Pentagon will release its annual China Military Power Report soon. What will it detail about the growing capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its role in China’s broader aims? Will the conversation in Washington reflect the urgency of the military challenge posed by Beijing?  

Third, how will the Pentagon follow through on Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent announcement that the PLA and the US military will “set up military-to-military channels to deconflict and deescalate any problems that arise”?  

Fourth, at the time of writing, the US government remains poised for its longest shutdown in history. Can Trump and Members of Congress reach a broader budget deal that still ensures the US military has the capabilities it needs to underwrite stability in the Indo-Pacific? Looking further ahead, will next year’s defense budget prioritize improvements to US capabilities and force posture in the region?  

Meanwhile, America’s allies and partners are signaling where their defense priorities lie. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has committed to accelerating defense spending to reach 2 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) about two years ahead of schedule. President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea said in October that Seoul will spend roughly 8 percent more on defense next year. Taiwan now aims to raise its defense budget to 5 percent of its GDP before 2030. Building on this shared vision for a stable region will require sustained US senior leader engagement, including travel to the Indo-Pacific. But deterring PRC aggression will take more than frequent-flyer miles.  

Connor Fiddler—Homeland Defense Inhibiting US Asia Strategy?  

As President Trump returns from his trip to Asia, many headlines are highlighting real policy advances from the week. That shouldn’t be minimized; there were notable achievements. In Kuala Lumpur, Trump signed trade deals with Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam. With treaty allies Japan and South Korea, he announced new allied investment commitments and defense initiatives to bolster allied deterrence. In his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two leaders cooled tensions, even if the measures fell well short of comprehensive change. Despite these gains, US strategy in Asia still seems adrift—lacking consistency, focus, energy, and strategic direction. 

Soon after Trump’s reelection in November, many predicted the rise of the so-called Prioritizers—Republican officials who seek to limit US military involvement in Europe and the Middle East to invest more in Asian deterrence. Thus far, the Prioritizers have struggled to realize significant policy gains, particularly as homeland defense takes precedence. The new administration’s theory of security is centered on homeland defense. Operations in the Caribbean, militarization of the southern border, the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, and growing flirtation with regime change in Venezuela all indicate that homeland defense is the priority. 

As homeland defense becomes the center of gravity for US grand strategy, it inhibits Washington’s Asia strategy in three ways: resources, operational capacity, and strategic attention. 

First, operational capacity. As the administration expands military operations against narcotics organizations and hardens its posture toward Venezuela, assets critical to Asian security are being diverted to the Western Hemisphere. Recently, the United States announced the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford—the Navy’s most capable aircraft carrier—to the Caribbean. As the naval buildup in the hemisphere expands, deterrence in Asia suffers. Without sufficient force structure and readiness to meet a growing list of missions, the United States will face tighter operational tradeoffs across theaters. 

Second, resources. Until the United States budgets for a military establishment that matches its expanding threats, resources will remain short across all combatant commands. The Golden Dome initiative is a major investment that could deliver important, long-delayed security for Americans. But that price tag—estimated at roughly $252 billion to $3.6 trillion over twenty years—will inevitably pull resources from other critical deterrence initiatives, not only in Asia but in other vital theaters as well. 

Finally, the shift from great-power competition to homeland defense will likely be codified in the soon-to-be-released National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy. These white papers are nonbinding and can change with events. However, they signal to both domestic and foreign audiences where the government is investing strategic attention: not in Asia, Europe, or the Middle East, but in the Western Hemisphere. 

If Washington wants an Asia strategy built around a coherent theory of victory, the administration must move beyond transactional, ad hoc—albeit sometimes beneficial—deals toward a more strategic, disciplined, and well-resourced approach to the region. 

Don McLain Gill—The Way Forward for US-Philippines Relations  

The meeting between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi in South Korea garnered significant global attention due to its political and economic ramifications. In general, having both powers interact with one another amid exacerbating geopolitical conditions in the Indo-Pacific is a welcome development. For the Philippines, as with other US allies in the Indo-Pacific, it is closely watching whether this truce will eventually lead to an enduring grand bargain that compromises Philippine national security interests in the face of an expansionist China.  

The bilateral meeting yielded a short-term truce with modest results, including a one-year deferment of Beijing’s export ban on rare earth materials, the resumption of China’s imports of US soybeans, Beijing’s willingness to limit fentanyl precursor exports, and a slight lowering of US tariffs on China. However, this is merely a framework agreement for a long-term deal, and such agreements have been known to falter at a moment’s notice. For instance, the Trump administration’s unilateral decision to impose added sanctions on Canada in October came after months of painstaking trade talks.  

Moreover, given the highly volatile foundations of this bilateral framework, it is unlikely to lead to significant structural change. The mistrust between the United States and China runs deeper than what this intended deal would seek to resolve. This explains why the United States has kept its export controls on high-end chips. Additionally, due to a lack of political space and the desire of both sides to negotiate from a position of dominance, the possibility of a grand bargain over the security of the Western Pacific remains low. This is perhaps why the status of Taiwan did not even reach the discussion table. Nevertheless, this limited truce may play to China’s advantage by buying Beijing time to enhance its relative technology capabilities, especially as key US semiconductor companies are encouraging the Trump administration to loosen its export controls on chips for China.  

For the Philippines, the strategic environment in which it operates will persist in a cycle of escalation and de-escalation. To be fair, there are no significant signs of the United States faltering in its security commitments toward the alliance. In fact, a day after the Trump-Xi meeting, US Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro announced the creation of the Task Force Philippines, which would improve alliance coordination, deterrence, and joint preparedness amid China’s aggressive maneuvers in Philippine waters. There have also been positive developments in security cooperation between the United States and Japan, as well as between the United States and South Korea. While the support of the United States is most consequential for the Philippines’ external defense posture, Manila must also concurrently explore ways to deepen its defense cooperation with other partners, particularly Japan and Australia. In an unlikely scenario where Washington and Beijing would agree on a grand bargain, the United States would still push its allies to enhance their respective defense capabilities with China in mind. 

Michael Kugelman—Another Blow to a Floundering Partnership  

For New Delhi, as for many other world capitals and general observers, the biggest storyline of the APEC summit wasn’t the event itself. India isn’t an APEC member, and it has no immediate intention of becoming one. Rather, it was the sidelines meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

The outcome of the Trump-Xi exchange could deal another blow to a US-India partnership that has taken multiple hits during the second Trump administration—thanks in great part to high US tariffs slapped on India, withering US criticism of New Delhi, and an unexpected resurgence in US-Pakistan ties. 

Trump’s willingness to reduce trade tensions with Beijing will intensify fears in New Delhi—which first surfaced soon after Trump’s reelection—that Washington will seek some type of accommodation with China, as part of a broader effort to lessen the risk of future US-China conflict. Shared concerns about China’s rise have long motivated US-India strategic partnership. 

To be sure, New Delhi has been working to reduce its own tensions with Beijing, starting with a border deal reached last October. And the 50 percent US tariffs with which it was hit give it a strong incentive to deepen its already-robust commercial ties with Beijing.   

Still, at the end of the day, India continues to view China, in a fundamental sense, as a strategic competitor and threat—in great part because of their disputed border and China’s deep alliance with Pakistan. Trump’s accommodation with Xi—even if one rooted in commercial, not strategic, motivations—gives New Delhi another reason to be skeptical about the future of US-India strategic partnership.  

Additionally, Trump’s labeling of the United States and China as a “G2” arrangement prior to his meeting with Xi did not go down well in New Delhi—and not just because it suggests a desire to elevate US ties with Beijing. For Indian officials, the term will come across as a threat to a more multipolar world order that New Delhi has long sought to promote. India’s embrace of multipolarity has always been a challenge for US-India ties. Multipolarity risks diluting US power, and it also impels New Delhi to participate in a wide range of multilateral groupings—including those, like Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that project themselves as alternatives to groups or models led or backed by the United States.  

Trump’s nod to bipolarity is at odds with the main outcome of the APEC summit, with its members’ pledge to strengthen economic integration and trade facilitation—an effort to assert the collective strength of APEC, and thereby to signal its commitment to multipolarity. 

The takeaway for New Delhi is clear: Multipolarity remains a minefield for US-India relations, while APEC’s position—at least rhetorically—is more aligned with that of New Delhi. But as a non-APEC member, New Delhi will continue its long-standing policy of pursuing economic cooperation bilaterally with APEC members, which include some of India’s closest partners. 

Troy Stangarone—Korea Successfully Navigates US-China Tensions at APEC 

Coming into the 2025 APEC leaders’ meeting, there was a significant chance that it could be derailed by trade tensions beyond Seoul’s control. Only weeks beforehand, China announced new export controls on critical minerals and rare earth magnets, while the United States threatened to increase its tariffs on China by 100 percent in retaliation. It also appeared that Korea would be unable to conclude its own new trade agreement with the United States. But with Washington and Beijing reaching a truce, Seoul concluding its own bilateral agreement with Washington, and the announcement of the Gyeongju Declaration, Korea hosted a successful 2025 APEC meeting. 

Trade policy has become more complex with the Trump administration’s use of wide-ranging tariffs on allies and trading partners. Trade disputes between the United States and China prevented the issuance of a joint statement in 2018, but the trade truce reached just prior to the leaders’ meeting avoided the prospect of ending the summit without a joint leaders’ statement. While the statement was more cautious on trade than prior ones due to the repositioning of the United States, the statement remained committed to APEC’s core values of promoting free trade and economic integration in the region. The Gyeongju Declaration reaffirmed the importance of trade and investment for economic growth, affirmed that trade should benefit all, and maintained the goal of establishing a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.  

Significantly, the Gyeongju leaders’ meeting added new initiatives on artificial intelligence (AI) and demographics to the APEC agenda. Under the APEC AI Initiative, APEC member states agreed to advance AI innovation in the region with a focus on safety, to increase capacity building to grow the meaningful participation of member economies in adopting AI, and to focus on AI infrastructure that is more energy efficient.  

The success on AI at APEC was coupled with a commercial agreement with Nvidia to provide more 260,000 Blackwell and other graphics processing units to the Korean government and Korean firms in support of Korea’s sovereign AI infrastructure and advancing the integration of AI into manufacturing—a larger commitment than was made in Nvidia’s partnership with the United Kingdom. 

The new Collaborative Framework for Demographic Changes is an attempt by APEC countries to manage the impact of demographic shifts in the region for their economies. While much of Southeast Asia’s population is relatively young, China, Korea, and Japan each face rapidly aging populations. The framework acknowledges that there is no common approach that will work for each nation, but it does commit countries to improving labor market access for workers, promoting lifelong learning, developing a “silver economy” that provides services to aging populations, and improving healthcare for the region’s populations. 

While Korea successfully expanded the APEC agenda to focus on AI and demographic change, it also engaged in successful bilateral talks with the United States prior to the summit. Critically, the two sides finalized the details of their new trade agreement, details on funding Korea’s $350 billion US investment fund. However, the most significant outcome for Seoul in the long run may be the US decision to allow Korea to develop nuclear submarines to counter growing threats within the region.  

Image: The White House