Donald Trump has regained power in the United States, riding a wave of fear and anti-incumbent desire for change. For Americans, it is now the greatest test of its democratic and constitutional order since the Civil War.
But for the rest of the world, it is no less a traumatic moment. The United States is now poised to retreat from its leadership of the postwar liberal order.
What does Trump’s return mean for Asia and for American allies in Japan, South Korea, and the Pacific?
Japanese and Korean leaders may be reassured by soothing words from some American security experts, including would-be advisors to Trump. Nothing will change in the Indo-Pacific under Trump, those experts counsel.
“U.S. foreign policy in this region is likely to remain constant,” Derek Grossman, a RAND specialist on Asian security and former intelligence official, wrote just before the vote in The Diplomat. Trump may be “a more transactional and unpredictable leader,” but he left alliances in the region intact. No matter what happens, he wrote ahead of the vote, “the China factor will foster the continued development of the U.S. alliance network.”
These views ignore the abundant evidence, mostly in Trump’s own words, of his intention at the end of the first term to abandon much of those alliance commitments.
As his former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and National Security advisor John Bolton documented in their memoirs, he planned to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea, to complete the unfinished bargain with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un which would leave his nuclear forces intact, and to demand massive payments from Japan to pay for the American defense role.
It also brushes past Trump’s repeated intention to impose massive across the board tariffs on foreign goods – not only aimed at China but also at allied nations in Europe and Asia.
More importantly, the idea that foreign policy in Asia can be distinct and separate from what happens elsewhere, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, is an illusion.
As Japan’s own National Security Strategy made clear, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered the security situation in East Asia. It has created a close military alliance between Russia, China, and North Korea, threatening the stability of the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and all of East Asia.
Trump made it repeatedly clear, as did his running mate J.D. Vance, that he intends to cut off military aid to Ukraine and push it to accept the surrender terms offered by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He also threatened to abandon the security commitment to NATO, opening the door for Putin to retake control of parts of the Soviet empire, beginning with the Baltic states and threatening Poland.
“Trump will feel like he has an electoral mandate to do these crazier things,” predicts Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and director of Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies.
“If he wins again when it comes to things like NATO or our allies in Asia, he thinks that the American people support him in saying to Putin do whatever the hell you want. I think history shows that when we are strong, the United States of America when we exhibit peace through strength, we have more peaceful outcomes. When we signal weakness, when we try to appease dictators, that's when bad things can happen.”
Trump was constrained from pursuing those goals during his first term, in large part due to the presence of responsible figures from the Republican national security elite and by his own incompetence and unfamiliarity with the levers of power. Those restraints will no longer be present.
“In his first term, he relied on traditional Republicans to fill his foreign policy team, people like (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo, (former) Secretary of Defense (James N.) Mattis, (former national security advisors) H.R. McMaster and John Bolton,” McFaul told the Kyiv Independent.
“They most certainly stopped Trump from doing some of the craziest things that he proposed – pulling out of NATO being at the top of that list. What's going to be different this time around is that none of those people are going to be in the Trump administration; he's disparaged all of them.”
What about China? And North Korea?
Despite these concerns, it is assumed Trump will at least continue to see China as the principle adversary of the United States, particularly in the realm of trade and economic policy. For that reason, Japanese policymakers, and to a lesser extent those in South Korea, believe the alliances in Northeast Asia will continue to have value to a Trump administration.
Even if this is true, that does not mean smooth sailing for Tokyo, or for Seoul. It may lead to increased demands on both allies to spend vastly more on defense and to join in export controls and other curbs on trade and investment with China that would cause potentially severe consequences for their economies.
“The Trump administration is going to twist a lot of arms and they better be ready for that,” says Tobias Harris, the founder of Japan Foresight, a respected advisory organization. Trump's advisors have already pushed Japan to greatly increase its defense spending beyond the 2 percent GNP target and to be responsible for its own defense.
The Trump tariff policy may pose an even greater problem, argues Harris:
“If Trump follows through, even partially, on threats to impose off-the-board tariffs on US imports, plus significant imports on US tariffs from China and Mexico, it will have a significant, immediate impact on Japan’s largest manufacturers, prompting them to consider whether to shift manufacturing to the US, back to Japan, or to other markets. Japanese companies may also have to grapple with greater pressure from Washington on technology export controls with China, though as Trump’s vocal opposition to Nippon Steel’s bid for US Steel suggests, they will also have to navigate political and national security considerations if they opt to shift investment into the US in response to the Trump administration’s policies.”
It may be premature, however, to assume that Trump will want to line up Japan and South Korea for a grand confrontation with China. Some analysts suggest that Trump instead may opt for a grand bargain with Xi Jinping, one that could even include abandoning Taiwan.
The President-elect made several comments during the campaign about Taiwan, complaining that their firms have destroyed the U.S. semiconductor industry and questioning whether the U.S. should come to its defense.
“Making China a key target or centerpiece of his second incarnation is unnecessary and possibly unlikely,” a former senior intelligence official and long-time China hand told me.
“There is likely to be little immediate payoff for him or his minions. He will bluster, threaten tariffs, and brag about his relationship with Xi, but probably not come out swinging.”
Trump’s new primary backer, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk, has extensive business ties in China, where over half of the company’s global car production takes place at their massive Shanghai factory.
The other target of Trump’s affection may be North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump continues to speak about his warm relationship with Kim and lament the missed opportunity to forge a peace deal with him.
That bargain was almost reached at their second summit meeting in Hanoi, but faltered due both to Kim’s overly grand demands and due to opposition from within Trump’s own administration, backed by the intervention from then Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.
There will be no such resistance within the new administration. And Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru does not have any such relationship with Trump, nor is he likely to be able to create one. The most serious obstacle to a deal, one which would seal in North Korea’s nuclear capability and the missile systems that can reach Japan, may come from Kim himself.
Trump may claim Kim is waiting for him with open arms, but the North Koreans have since forged a close military alliance with Russia, marked by the deployment of 12,000 troops to the Ukraine front. An opening to North Korea would likely have to follow a Trump-Putin embrace, and even then Kim is likely to use his new power to ask for a far greater payoff from Trump.
What is more likely, however, is a breakdown in U.S.-South Korean ties, demands to renegotiate defense cost-sharing payments from Korea, and to begin withdrawal of the some 28,500 U.S. forces based there.
“Trump has given no indication he values South Korea as an ally, and quite the contrary, seems set to redefine it either through withdrawal or demanding South Korea take more responsibility for its own defense vis-a-vis North Korea as U.S. forces are reoriented to directly confront China,” Benjamin Engel of Seoul’s Dankook University told NK News.
Wither Japan?
For Japan, the shocking events in the U.S. came just after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in last month’s election, and Prime Minister Ishiba is facing the unusual task of forming a minority government. As a veteran observer of Japan put it to me, “internal political paralysis in Tokyo is limiting the ability of Japan to navigate this new, extremely dangerous situation.”
Ishiba has promptly congratulated Trump and, as one would expect, expressed hope in the continuation of the postwar security alliance as a foundation of the U.S.-Japan relationship.
But suppose Trump goes deeply down the road of undermining that alliance or even forcing an unwanted confrontation with China. In that case, Japan may be compelled to look for alternatives, including improving ties with Beijing while flattering the newly powerful American autocrat.
“Japanese are not going to end the alliance,” says Japan expert Harris. “But they are going to have to learn how to do things on their own more.”
