SINGAPORE: Aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, global scam operations and the new United States leadership are the top three geopolitical concerns of Southeast Asian governments this year, according to thought leaders in the region polled by a Singapore research institute.
With President Donald Trump inaugurated for a second term on Jan 20, new US leadership shot up on the list of geopolitical concerns in the 2025 edition of The State of Southeast Asia survey by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute released on Thursday (Apr 3).
Cited by 46.9 per cent of respondents, it saw a surge from last year when the 2024 US presidential election took 8th spot among 10 options, with only 18.8 per cent considering it to be among the top concerns of their country’s government.
The survey was conducted both online and offline between Jan 3 and Feb 15, with just under half the responses garnered before Trump took office, and the remainder after. There were “no discernible differences” in results recorded in the two periods, said ISEAS.
Since he took office, Trump has focused on countries with large trade imbalances with the US. The US Department of Commerce’s 2024 data shows Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are among them.
Sweeping tariffs are also due to come into effect on Thursday (Apr 3), with a 10 per cent baseline tariff on all imports to the US and higher duties on dozens of other countries.
Trump has also suggested Asian countries should pay for US security commitments.
The US leadership concern was particularly prominent among Singaporeans, with over 70 per cent of them citing it as a preoccupation, ISEAS found.
Its researchers noted Singapore would be impacted by any changes in US political, economic and defence policies because it is one of the US’ closest partners in the region.
“One of the biggest issues to have grabbed attention since the advent of Trump 2.0 are the allegations of export control violations of Nvidia chips in Singapore that enabled the development of China’s AI model DeepSeek,” the survey’s authors added.
Read the full article here
