KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — To President Donald Trump, it’s all about the “art of the deal.” And landing economic agreements with individual nations has been the focus of the president’s swing through Asia as the impact of tariffs overshadows just about everything else.
With Trump’s trade war taking center stage at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, the president used the multilateral confab as the backdrop for one-on-one dealmaking.
That approach paid out. At ASEAN, Trump announced individual trade agreements with four of its 11 member states, including Cambodia and Malaysia.
But it has also put smaller nations in a bind — caught between the U.S. and China as the world’s two most formidable economic powers vie for dominance in the Indo-Pacific.
The Cambodia and Malaysia deals with the U.S. contained provisions obligating those countries to cooperate against “third countries” in areas such as export controls and tariff evasion — language aimed at China.
China, meanwhile, used the summit as a chance to inveigh against the disruptive impact of “high tariffs” — an apparent reference to Trump’s trade policies, which remain a sore spot for many U.S. trading partners.
The White House is unconcerned about ceding power to China in the Indo-Pacific by foregoing regional cooperation on multi-lateral trade pacts for individual deals that squeeze concessions for the U.S.
“The Trump administration’s focus on bilateral trade deals has already accomplished more for American workers, farmers, and industries than decades of prior administrations promoting multilateral collaboration have,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement, going on to state that Trump’s trade deals have “created unprecedented market access” to economies worth over $30 trillion and encompassing nearly a billion people.
Trump’s reciprocal tariff threats have created an environment of economic instability in southeast Asia, which has been hit especially hard by the escalatory tit-for-tat. In 2024, the trade of U.S. goods and services with the then-10 ASEAN nations totaled roughly $572 billion. An August 2025 report from the United Nations Development Program projected that tariff-induced price increases will cause a 9.7 percent drop in exports from the southeast Asia to the U.S.; Vietnam, the most affected nation in the region, faces a potential 5 percent reduction in its GDP as a result.
Earlier this year, Trump’s moves prompted ASEAN leaders to issue a joint statement expressing concern “over the continued rise in unilateral actions relating to tariffs … and the growing risk of global fragmentation.”
“ASEAN underscores that unilateral and retaliatory trade actions are counterproductive and risk exacerbating global economic fragmentation,” the leaders wrote in May.
In recent days, Trump sought to change that tune.
“I’m here on a mission of friendship and goodwill and to deepen our ties of commerce, to strengthen our common security and to really promote — strongly — stability, prosperity and peace for all of the countries in this room,” Trump said during his opening remarks at the ASEAN leaders working lunch session. And, referencing the signing of individual trade deals with various regional partners, Trump assured attendees that the U.S. intends “to be a strong partner and friend for many generations to come.” The Trump administration considers Asia “one of the most economically vibrant regions of the world,” a senior Trump administration official said, and views the series of individual economic agreements delivered on the president’s trip as beneficial to both the U.S. and the region. “These will further reshape the global economic order and secure more investments that will create high paying jobs and advance the reindustrialization of America,” the senior official said, adding new critical mineral agreements “will rapidly unlock the region’s resources to create reliable industrial supply chains to support a resilient and prosperous world economy.” As Trump heads to the APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, eyes will again be pulled away from the marquee multilateral event in favor of bilateral meetings — including, later this week, a face-to-face between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Ahead of that meeting, even as U.S. and Chinese negotiators have worked to bend smaller nations to their will, they’ve been locked in behind-the-scenes talks aimed at lessening the costs of escalatory trade barriers. “We had a very good two days, so I would expect that the threat of the 100 percent [tariff Trump proposed on China] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export-control regime,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said of the Sinoamerican talks, emphasizing the global implications. The remaining 21 APEC member countries will effectively be pushed to the sidelines, watching and waiting for an outcome sure to have an outsized impact on their own economies and futures. “The reality remains that all these countries are seeking to conclude a trade deal with the United States, and I think that, in and of itself, shows the importance of their trading relationship with the United States,” a senior State Department official said. “And ultimately, I think that’s what matters here.”
Julia Jester
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C. Recommended
