Brace for turbulence: China, South-east Asia and Trump 2.0

The US’ President-elect inherits a world different from that in his first term.

Synopsis: The Straits Times' global contributor Nirmal Ghosh shines a light on Asian perspectives of global and Asian issues with expert guests.

Tariffs - as a weapon to restore and rejuvenate American jobs and manufacturing - will be back with a vengeance in Donald Trump’s second term. So will competition with China, in the course of which performative support for Taiwan by hawks in Congress and Washington DC security circles may end up provoking Beijing and thus hurting Taiwan.

Yet the US’ 47th President will inherit a world different from that of his first term in 2017 - one with more limits to American power. While some hawks in Washington see China as weak and advocate that the US should do everything it can to push it over the edge, realists understand the US can no longer do everything.

From the perspective of South-east Asia, it is imperative to defuse the zero-sum mentality of US-China competition. Faced with the disruptive effects of tariffs, this region has to also find ways to go back to a kind of globalisation that works for everyone.

These are some of the challenges, and currents, that the next American President and the US' trade partners and allies must navigate and adapt to, as a new era looms in Washington DC.

In this episode of Asian Insider, Nirmal hosts Danny Quah, Professor of Economics and Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and Robert Manning, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, who is working on the think tank’s Strategic Foresight and China programmes.

They share their perspectives from opposite sides of the world, on the foreign policy of the Donald Trump 2.0 Administration.

Highlights (click/tap above):

2:51 Defusing the zero-sum game; what is Trump's idea of a bilateral trade deficit?

6:47 Trump inheriting a very different world now in his second term

13:17 Is there a kind of globalisation that can work for everyone?

16:34 Why Donald Trump is not shy to exercise hard power

18:02 China weak? Why the US can't do everything anymore

23:54 What makes Trump so tricky to work with?

Follow Nirmal Ghosh on X: https://str.sg/JD7r

Read Nirmal Ghosh's articles: https://str.sg/JbxG

Host: Nirmal Ghosh (nirmal@sph.com.sg)

Produced and edited by: Fa’izah Sani