Managing regional security amid DC disconnects

Frank O'Donnell

The second Donald Trump administration’s Asia approach suffers from increasingly evident policy disconnects. While U.S. allies and partners hope these contradictions will eventually be resolved and greater coherence will emerge, they must still plan on the basis that this distracted D.C. represents the new status quo. Developing greater self-reliance and multilateral approaches not conditioned on U.S. approval should be priorities amid this tumult.

The global tariffs announced by the United States on April 2 were of a magnitude unexpected by its economic and security partners, and even much of Wall Street. The shock of this overnight historic shift in U.S. economic policy — and its effects in throttling international trade and likely provoking a global recession in 2025 — can only be explained by understanding Trump’s personal economic views. Through this lens, a U.S. trade deficit with another country is America losing at a zero-sum game. Sweeping protectionist tariffs will build a new U.S. economy that features external trade balances or surpluses. Declines in American and international stock markets and living standards are acceptable costs to pay toward this goal.

This perspective is damaging in itself, but it also undermines other simultaneous U.S. policy priorities. By wielding such a blunt instrument, the Trump administration threatens allies and partners with the same economic volatility or even recession that it seeks to impose on U.S. rivals. Senior levels of the politically appointed U.S. foreign and defense policy apparatus are planning a rebalancing of political and military commitments toward prioritizing East Asia. However, such a shift — including demands for greater defense expenditures by U.S. allies — requires deep trust and mutual understanding of a shared objective. The tariffs undermine not only efforts to develop this trust but also the actual ability of states to make real defense investments and grow their capabilities when their fiscal pie is shrinking. This illustrates one disconnect within the administration, in which Trump’s apex-level emphasis on tariffs conflicts with senior officials’ focus on geostrategic repositioning.

Even if Trump decides to reduce tariffs for selected countries or condition them on desired policy changes, this will not necessarily resolve the tension between the two imperatives. This could also reinforce regional perceptions that U.S. commitments are increasingly unreliable, further weakening the trust necessary for its new Asia pivot to succeed.

A second disconnect lies in the apex-level drive to reduce the functional capacity of the U.S. government to articulate and execute its foreign and defense policies. DOGE’s de facto “cancellations” of USAID and federal spending commitments have left few elements of U.S. policymaking untouched, especially as the workforce remains distracted, fearing their office or positions may be next. The same staffers who keep the engine running now face additional pressures from the roving apex anti-DEI campaign, which has already counted the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment — a previously invaluable resource for conceptualizing U.S. Asia-Pacific strategies in the 21st century — as one of its casualties.

Senior policymakers must propose policy options drawing upon the expertise of these staffers, while also relying on them to effectively implement and clearly communicate decisions to external partners and audiences. Their herculean efforts to continue fulfilling these roles amidst the campaigns targeting them are unlikely to fully compensate for the severe losses to their basic capacity to do so. This means that even if more coherent U.S. policies toward the Asia-Pacific emerge — including a potential resolution of the tariff-pivot contradiction — the U.S. ability to deliver on these policies will remain in question.

These realities must be faced squarely. As regional allies and partners seek to persuade Washington to climb down from its new tariffs, they must also plan around the likelihood that these measures — and the other conditions described above — have become the new status quo. To develop new, durable sources of economic growth, they must advance trade and investment agreements with each other, regardless of whether the U.S. joins. The disruptions in D.C. will still necessitate higher defense spending as the uncertainty surrounding U.S. commitments deepens. However, defense planning, as well as new systems and technologies, will likely need to feature fewer U.S. components as critical architecture, and more national or like-minded partner elements instead. A new regional multilateralism, less reliant on U.S. impetus and resources but still committed to many of the same goals, will ultimately form a stronger foundation for ensuring the Asia-Pacific remains peaceful through the 21st century.

In a way, this outcome would paradoxically achieve the Trump administration’s preference for greater partner economic and defense burden-sharing in upholding regional order. However, the eventual form of this new regional multilateralism will be affected by its origins as a reaction to perceived U.S. apex-level decisions that target allies’ prosperity and national interests, rather than as an initiative developed through U.S. consultations grounded in deep trust. The Trump administration should recognize the long-term consequences of the turmoil it has unleashed and undertake a dramatic — but not impossible — course correction. Its regional allies and partners, however, should plan on the basis that it won’t.

Dr. Frank O’Donnell is a senior research adviser at the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) and a Nonresident Fellow in the Stimson Center South Asia Program. This essay is published in cooperation with the APLN (www.apln.network).