CSIS Public Forum on Regional Response to Trump 2.0
Date:
Thu 10 Apr 2025 1400h
CSIS Public Forum on Regional Response to Trump 2.0
Speaker — Dyah Roro Esti. Vice Minister of Trade, Republic of Indonesia
Panel — Regional Response to Trump 2.0
Panelists — Shiro Armstrong, Mari Pangestu, Danny Quah, Sinta Sirait
Moderator — Yose Rizal Damuri
Venue — Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Indonesia
Location — Jakarta, Indonesia
I began by describing my understanding on the logic driving those such as Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. He recently described his government’s assessment of US tariffs on specific businesses and industries. As he did that, however, PM Wong also made clear deeper concerns for world order and the global economy.
I then made three points.
First, everyone is vulnerable. Regardless whether America’s trade actions or its security recalibration are ultimately rolled back, “Liberation Day 2025” shows that, whoever you are, your nation can have the US act against you. It doesn’t matter if you have zero tariffs on US imports, allow the US to be running a trade surplus against you, are a democracy, are not the People’s Republic of China, have outstanding security and economic treaties with the US (perhaps even signed by President Trump), or be in a centuries-old special relationship with America.
Second, more important is the fraying of our multilateral rules-based system, not the idiosyncratic randomness of day to day individual pronouncements. The brutally large fact of the matter is that the US is actively undermining the rules-based multilateral system it built. This is after a decade of warning all the rest of us of the dangers of China threatening to become a revisionist disruptor of the international system.
Yes, of course, there are strategic security and economic reasons to America’s actions. Those reasons do not overturn the harm that these actions are having on the international economic system, nor to the standing of the US in world order. It is sometimes thought that that last is controlled by how powerful the US is or how strong a military the US has. It isn’t. For the US or for any other nation, it is the rest of the world that has ownership on that nation’s standing and respect.
Third, ASEAN needs to stand together and look to long-term regional solidarity. We, of course, want the US (and any other Great Power) alongside us as we deal with the grand challenges of our time. But the response is ours alone to give when anyone asks too much of us. The US has already withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization, and in effect the World Trade Organization. When we encounter a bully, the two gravest errors we can make is to give in and then encourage the bully to ask for yet more, and to not resolutely stand in unison but instead give in to the temptation to defect.
Obviously, we shouldn’t lash out in retaliation. But neither should we acquiesce and appease. Not responding with pushback does not mean quietly giving in to appeasement. There is clear blue water between these two extremes.
Now, more than ever, is it important to look to opportunities for inadvertent cooperation. Between ourselves, we don’t have to agree and we don’t have to sign up to explicitly collaborate. We simply have to ensure the other guy does the right thing, even if it’s, in our view, for the wrong reason.
