Washington’s latest national security blueprint may be one of its most consequential in years, yet it barely mentions Southeast Asia.
Analysts say that absence speaks volumes, signalling a narrowing of American priorities that risks turning the region into a “bargaining chip” in the US-China rivalry.
The National Security Strategy published by the White House on December 4 presents the Trump administration’s vision for restoring “American economic independence”, alongside preventing conflict in the Indo-Pacific, as the twin pillars of its “America first” doctrine.
Advertisement
It calls for fairness and reciprocity in global commerce and for robust measures to “prevent war in the Indo-Pacific”. But Southeast Asia appears only twice in its 32 pages – mentioned once in passing as a market for China’s “enormous excess capacity” and again as a distinct theatre from Northeast Asia.
Asia is primarily seen as a site for righting trade imbalances
That singular focus on China at Southeast Asia’s expense in the first such blueprint to be issued since 2022 “comes as a disappointment, but not a surprise”, Kevin Chen, an associate research fellow with Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ US programme, told This Week in Asia.
Advertisement