ASEAN On The Hot Seat In US Tariff Negotiations

2025-07-03 10:12:59

(MENAFN- Asia Times) As the 90-day 'pause' on Donald Trump's“reciprocal tariffs” nears the finish line, countries across Southeast Asia are growing increasingly anxious that the price for securing a deal to lower those tariffs includes political backlash at home and friction abroad with China, their largest, by far, economic partner.

Views vary across the ten-member Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) on how high a price they are willing to pay, but conversations with government officials in five ASEAN countries over the past month reflected a deep sense of unease with their near-term economic prospects.

Initial optimism that efforts to bring down trade surpluses with the US would suffice to reduce if not eliminate reciprocal tariffs has given way to an uncomfortable awareness that ASEAN finds itself on the frontlines of a US-China rivalry it can do little to shape or avoid, with the lines between trade and geopolitics growing more blurred by the day.

As ASEAN's trade negotiators dig deeper into the fine print of demands emanating from the US Trade Representative (USTR)'s office, it's becoming clearer that the US goal is not merely to secure a larger piece of the Asian economic pie for America but to shrink the size of the pie currently enjoyed by China.

And the gist of Beijing's message to ASEAN capitals is“negotiate the best deal you can with the US, but don't harm China's interests.” It's not obvious how ASEAN will escape this quandary, and hence the rising sense of disquiet across the region.

The US remains an important export destination for ASEAN, and reduced access to the US market will bring economic pain and job loss, although at varying degrees across the region. Reciprocal tariffs imposed on ASEAN were among the highest in the world, ranging from 10% for Singapore and 17% for the Philippines to 46% for Vietnam and 49% for Cambodia.

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