ASEAN, explained.

Donald Trump at the ASEAN summit in 2017 (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump at the ASEAN summit in 2017 in the Philippines (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

ASEAN summits in 2025: Trump centrality

The US President’s attendance is prized by ASEAN, even as it poses challenges.

Susannah Patton

24 October 20253 min read

Donald Trump and ASEAN are not a natural fit.

Trump, a leader who emphasises his own unique deal-making genius to reshape international affairs.

ASEAN, a group that prioritises consensus and incremental cooperation over decades.

Trump, who likes meetings he controls.

ASEAN, a group that cherishes its own “centrality” or ability to set the regional agenda.

During his first term as President, Trump attended just one ASEAN summit, in the Philippines. He left early, before the wider 18-member East Asia Summit occurred, despite the meeting having been scheduled around his availability. Trump’s disinterest in meetings that he doesn’t chair is clear: in 2025 he left the G7 early, and his attendance at the United Nations General Assembly ended in acrimony.

So what brings him to ASEAN in 2025? Well, probably not desire to better understand Southeast Asia.

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s prime minister, hosting an ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur in May (Samsul Said/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The region has been on the receiving end of US global policies: tariffs, aid cuts and changes to US immigration settings, but hasn’t been a focus of US policy in any meaningful way. Trump has hosted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr of the Philippines at the White House, but interaction with other Southeast Asian leaders has been limited to a handful of phone calls. Even the leaders of the region’s largest country, Indonesia, and important US partner Singapore, are yet to sit down for extended meetings with Trump. If Trump’s worldview is one of great powers and spheres of influence, well, even Indonesia is probably too small to be of interest to him.

Southeast Asia does have one thing going for it: its leaders and officials really want Trump to be there. The attendance of any US president at the ASEAN summits is seen as a litmus test, both for the group’s international relevance, and for US interest in the region.

A lot would have to go wrong for the negatives to outweigh the positives.

And ASEAN’s response to the imposition of large-scale tariffs by the Trump administration has been telling. Rather than retaliating, despite resentment about Washington’s one-sided approach, the region’s leaders have sought dialogue. This holds true even in Malaysia, where Trump is unpopular, to the point of protests about his attendance.

Perhaps the most extreme example of a Southeast Asian country seeking to make inroads with Trump is President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia, whose recalibration of Jakarta’s approach to the Middle East seems motivated by offering a win to Trump.

And then, of course, there’s the possibility of presiding over a peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, one of eight conflicts around the world that Trump claims to have ended. It’s true that Trump’s threat of higher tariffs if Thailand and Cambodia didn’t reach a ceasefire probably helped bring them to the negotiating table. But clever diplomatic choreography meant that Malaysia, as ASEAN chair, remained in the driver’s seat, with the United States and China in the back row of the negotiations, both literally and metaphorically.

How this dynamic is choreographed with Trump in the room will doubtless be consuming officials’ time and energy, but Malaysia’s talented officials are likely to be able to find a solution which addresses both ASEAN’s own need for “centrality” – diplomatic code for steering the region’s agenda – and Trump’s innate need for centrality in any room he enters.

Trump’s fleeting visit to Malaysia, part of a broader tour of Asia taking in Japan and South Korea, will not address most of the questions about the US approach to Asia. But, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s brief visit earlier in the year, it will be welcome by ASEAN. A lot would have to go wrong for the negatives to outweigh the positives. The region’s leaders will likely see the summits as a chance to establish a connection with Trump, in the hope of prosecuting their economic case – i.e., avoiding higher tariffs over the months and years ahead. US allies Australia and Japan will be relieved to see the President attend, hoping that it may portend a more “normal” US approach to the Indo-Pacific.

About the author

Susannah Patton

Susannah Patton is Director, Asia Engagement at RMIT and a Nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute.

Topics

ASEAN United States