Former President Donald Trump upended the election tradition of “balancing the ticket” when he picked Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate. But the MAGA pair is unlikely to disrupt the calculus for an Asia that’s already preparing for the possibility of his victory in November, experts say.
Vance, a former Trump critic turned MAGA stalwart, has voiced foreign policy views in lockstep with Trump. Both men support wide tariffs on China and have criticized US aid to Ukraine.
Yet three experts on the Asia-Pacific told Business Insider that regional leaders — having learned from Trump’s shock win in 2016 and his subsequent unpredictability — are already laying the groundwork for a scenario where he wins.
Asia won’t be surprised by a Trump-Vance administration
“It would be quite irresponsible if they didn’t already countenance this, and I think, to be honest, we will not see the overreactions that we saw earlier or in parts of Europe,” said Dylan Loh, assistant professor of public policy and international studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Trump previously reneged on deals he felt were disadvantageous to the US and pressured allies like Japan and South Korea to support US defense costs.
But Loh believes regional stability will prevail.
“I think Trump’s tenure has shown that fears of abandonment or ignorance of politics in Asia are overblown,” he said.
The most prominent US-aligned governments in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have been hedging their bets and working carefully to make their economies and supply chains more resilient, said Chong Ja Ian, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore.
“Other Southeast Asian states seem to believe they can weather another Trump administration, perhaps by freezing on the efforts of the northeast Asian US allies and partners plus the Philippines,” he said.
It’s not just economics. The Philippines, for example, inked a new defense pact with Japan in July as it grapples with the threat of an increasingly belligerent China in the South China Sea. This comes as the Philippines signs maritime agreements with key NATO countries like the UK and France.
US-China relations won’t change much, whether it’s Trump or Biden at the wheel
Even though Trump started the US-China trade war, experts say that China won’t be too bothered if he returns to the White House.
This, NTU’s Loh said, is because President Joe Biden hasn’t really deviated from Trump’s hawkish stance against the Asian giant.
For one, the Biden administration has kept most of Trump’s China tariffs in place. In fact, Biden introduced some of his own when he announced a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in May.
“For China, any preferences for either Trump or Biden is going to be marginal,” Loh said.
“I think it is quite clear that regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is in office, the general bipartisan mood of seeing China as a threat or a strategic competitor will not abate,” he added.
Kevin Chen, a research fellow at NTU’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told BI that China may even prefer to have Trump back in power due to the turmoil he’ll bring to the US’ foreign ties.
“Given how Mr Trump would likely alienate US allies and partners with his policies, Beijing may prefer that he retake the White House to give them more opportunities to spread their influence,” Chen explained.
That said, most Asia-Pacific countries will shy away from appearing to take sides or expressing relief if either candidate wins.
“There’s a joke in Japanese diplomatic circles that the outcome of a US presidential election is like opening a Christmas present, except that they must express that ‘this is exactly what I wanted’ regardless of the result,” Chen said.
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