Trump 2.0: Navigating New Trade and Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region

Sun 09 Mar 2025 1350h
LSE China Development Forum
Panel — Trump 2.0: Navigating New Trade and Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region
Panelists — Jie Yu, David Lubin, Danny Quah, Dennis Wilder
Moderator — John Minnich

I made three points in my opening statement.

1. While his transactionalist instincts might be strong—which Asians love and keep repeating to themselves—Trump can also appear oblivious and ignorant of previous transactions and deals, some of which he himself arranged and were, indeed, good deals. Give examples.
2. If Trump is disrespectful of extant agreements, the one good thing the Indo-Pacific might have relied on is no longer available. There is no sense in which any deal, no matter how elaborate and well-crafted, is worth more than the attention span Trump has devoted to it. Instead, at each point in time, the arrangement will lapse to the worst one possible. Describe alternate history.
3. Taking these dangers into account and acknowledging world order is no longer what we’d taken it to be, the rest of us still have to protect ourselves. Just try to do so efficiently. For one, apply economic thinking to security analysis: Recognise that (1) prosecuting international violence is an activity with significant economies of scale (Great Powers do it better than anyone else can, even a collection of smaller states who outnumber in population a Great Power), and (2) holding size fixed, there are significant diminishing marginal returns to militarizing your economy. Just before Nazi Germany blitzkrieged all over it, France had been thought to have one of the world’s strongest armies, with a military leadership experienced in large-scale warfare. The implication of these is, be extremely calculating and keep in mind strong national security. But at the same recognise there will be limitations to how you can go it alone. Band together in like-minded others. Look for opportunities to cooperate inadvertently. Where you can, nudge Great Powers out of gridlock. Build platforms for pathfinder multilateralism. I gave examples of these.

All the panel had gentle disagreement with each other.