A WELCOME SENSE OF PRAGMATISM
From the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, some in Southeast Asia hoped that his transactional approach to foreign relations would create opportunities to embrace Washington more closely, especially those that chafed against traditional US demands on human rights. The fact that Mr Trump’s National Security Strategy did not mention values such as democracy promotion and human rights seemed to support these hopes.
Instead, US officials have focused on common strategic interests, particularly in the areas of critical minerals, artificial intelligence and defence technologies.
Pax Silica, for example, shows the upside of this approach: an initiative to serve US economic security by securing tech supply chains while offering partners a path to work more closely with American AI companies to develop new services. It is also an opportunity for partners to attract investments, with the Philippines reportedly in talks with iPhone manufacturer Foxconn to invest in its new AI hub.
The US continues to be a key security partner. Besides building on existing partnerships with allies such as the Philippines, it is also rekindling ties with once-spurned partners – the annual Angkor Sentinel exercise with Cambodia, for example, is expected to resume in early 2027, 10 years after it was discontinued.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summed up this proposition bluntly at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The US needed “partners, not protectorates”.
His accompanying demand for US allies and partners to spend at least 3.5 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence has been deemed unrealistic, but the message was clear: Washington wants others to share the responsibility and the price of sustaining the system that it created. Countries that want something from Washington would need to pay their fair share first.
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