Anxious Singapore urges Trump to stay engaged in South-East Asia

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Greetings from an ill-at-ease Singapore.

Since Donald Trump’s landslide victory last week, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has spoken bluntly of an increasingly dangerous “world in flux”. Eroding multilateral institutions and norms, he said, have given way to “growing zones of impunity, where state and non-state actors push for what they want with little or no consequences”.

Sides have lined up behind two ongoing hot wars, and the US-China rivalry threatens more: America has to choose whether China is an existential threat to be contained or a major power to be embraced. China, too, has to consider its responsibilities in upholding a peaceful, international order.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.Credit: Bloomberg

“These are consequential decisions because it will determine the future global order,” Wong said.

“We hope leaders on both sides will make the wise choices to engage one another, to find a way to co-exist with one another ... where they compete, but at the same time co-operate on issues of shared concerns. Where possible, Singapore will do our part to facilitate such a relationship.”

His remarks to journalists last week, his first since August and timed for just after the US election, were heavy on domestic issues – an election must be called no later than November next year — but also an appeal to the incoming Trump administration.

Wong sprinkled answers with the necessary celebrations of Trump and America – the “gold standard” free-trade agreement between the US and Singapore, which is now 20 years old, and the defence arrangements extended during the president-elect’s first term.

He articulated America’s waning sense of global duty, urging the nation to remain locked in.

“I think more and more Americans are asking ‘why does America have to bear the cost of these international responsibilities of upholding the international system … when we are not seeing the benefits?’

“We understand that, and that’s why we do not take this for granted. That’s why we lean forward to support America’s security presence in this part of the world. We lean forward to support America’s deployment of its logistics, its rotational deployment of troops in this part of the world. But beyond security, we would like to see more American economic engagement in South-East Asia.”

Leaders across the globe are coming to terms with what a second Trump presidency will mean for their part of the world. Most pressing for Wong and his South-East Asian counterparts is how issues of trade and security manifest in this turbulent and contested region under Trump’s emboldened America First movement.

The US is increasingly seen as a distant and sliding power. Earlier this year, an annual survey of South-East Asian attitudes by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute showed that, for the time being, most ordinary people would choose to align with China over America if forced to make decision.

The biggest outlier was the Philippines, a US security ally and frontline target of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. More than 80 per cent of Filipinos would still choose the US, an increase from 2023.

“With a Trump administration, Philippines will need a less ‘what can America do for us’ and more ‘what can we do for the alliance’ type of approach,” Jose Antonio Custodio, a military historian and regional analyst, tells me.

“If the Philippines has the same meek and submissive policy, it has currently when it comes to facing off with China, then the Trump administration might not be too happy – if you’re an ally, you have to contribute. That’s his view.”

In the past couple of days, Trump has named a slew of hardliners and China hawks to key cabinet positions. South-East Asian countries do not want to choose sides, but may be pressured to do so. Wong has travelled the world shoring up a diverse group of like-minded friends and partners since assuming the prime ministership in May.

“Someone, in fact, recently asked me why am I travelling so much. But these are all essential work trips,” Wong said.

How Trump’s planned across-the-board tariffs of up to 20 per cent, and 60 per cent or more on Chinese imports, will play out across the region, like the president-elect himself, is difficult to predict. Some countries could gain as investment and supply chains shift to other relatively low-cost regional hubs.

But what if Trump decides to raise tariffs on a country benefiting a little too much from US consumers? Analysts believe Vietnam, with a near $US100 billion ($154 billion) trade surplus with America, could be in the cross-hairs.

Investors remain uncertain. For small Singapore, tariffs are bad news.

“Trade is three times our GDP,” Wong said. “We are an open economy, we are a trading economy. We will be concerned in a world where there are more and more frictions to trade overall.”

It is with some regional trepidation that Chinese President Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and the fire-breathing former general Prabowo Subianto – sworn in as Indonesian president last month – are now the three most consequential figures for regional trade and peace.

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