Asean’s bold pledge to take a unified position on US tariffs is all but untenable now, experts say, as deals struck by the region’s largest economies with Washington set them on different paths towards softening the blow to their vital exports.
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Economic ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will meet on Tuesday to discuss their next steps after US President Donald Trump’s administration slapped tariffs of between 10 and 40 per cent on the bloc’s 10 members.
It will be their first meeting since the tariffs took effect in August.
But the different tariff levels and multibillion-dollar promises by the region’s largest economies to buy more from and invest in the US – negotiated separately at Washington’s insistence – leave the bloc with few options to live up to an earlier pledge in April to take a unified position on Trump’s tariffs.
“The tariffs have made clear the fact that each Asean country faces its own set of concerns and challenges … because of diverse bilateral trade interests and varying levels of exposure to US trade measures,” said Eric Low, a partner at Kuala Lumpur-based strategic advisory firm Densui.
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