FEATURES | SECURITY

Assessing
Trump’s Indo-
Pacific Strategy, 2
Years In
How has the
implementation of Trump’s
free and open Indo-Pacific
strategy played out so far?

By Elliot Silverberg and Matthew Sullivan

October 01, 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump waves

goodbye as he enters Air Force One after
participating in the East Asia Summit,
Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017, in Manila,
Philippines.
Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
The future of U.S. leadership in the Indo-
Pacific rests on the legitimacy granted
Washington through its regional network of
alliances. However, by some measures, the
United States has become increasingly
unhinged from its Asian partners of late.

One recent study of elite opinions in Southeast

Asia found that 59.1 percent believe U.S. power
is waning, a further 21.2 percent regard
Washington’s influence as unchanged, and an
alarming 68 percent feel U.S. engagement with
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) under U.S. President Donald Trump
has deteriorated. At a time when the United
States’ fastest-growing trade and security
partners are all in Asia, Washington’s
reliability in the Indo-Pacific is an open
question – and U.S. allies and partners in the
region may threaten to hedge their
commitments or expand their playbook of
options, accordingly.

Make no mistake, the Trump administration’s

free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy is a
worthy addition to U.S. policy in Asia.
According to the Pentagon’s latest report on
the subject in June, the U.S. Indo-Pacific
strategy revolves around the simultaneous
enhancement of America’s economic
engagement, security cooperation, and rule-
making potential – objectives that are
consistent with prior strategic thinking about
the region. Better still, FOIP’s adroit balancing
act between trade, security, and governance
also aligns with the approaches of key
partners like Japan and Australia.

But despite Trump’s efforts to date, regional

counterparts appear to be slow-walking their
reaffirmed commitments to his “free and
open” rhetoric. As the spiraling tensions
between Japan and South Korea illustrate,
even important allies are not unconditionally
on board with U.S. partner-building projects in
the Indo-Pacific. This equivocation – even
among fellow democratic countries – begs a
conversation about why the current approach
is struggling to rally support.

In our view, the problem begins with a

widening perceptions gap between the United
States and Asia. On economics and security,
Washington’s increasingly protectionist
treatment of traditional allies, exclusionary
policies toward strategic competitors, and
noncommittal attitude to global challenges like
climate change, are muddying international
views regarding its commitment to inclusive
prosperity. On governance, meanwhile,
Washington’s best efforts to promote the rule
of law, transparency, accountability, human
rights, and democratic civil society are facing
stiff resistance from authoritarian regimes
around the world, who are finding it easier
than ever to maintain social control with the
proliferation of new technologies. 

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***

In theory, U.S.-supported norms and values

contributing to a safer and more prosperous
regional order, as well as mutual security
concerns regarding China, North Korea, and
major environmental and resource challenges
in developing areas across South and
Southeast Asia, should incentivize greater
cooperation with the United States.

Objectively speaking, however, U.S. influence

is in relative decline compared to rising
powers like China and India. Despite the
United States’ robust economic, military, and
people-to-people ties with the Indo-Pacific, U.S.
policymakers must also square with the reality
that Asia has soured to Washington’s potential
for delivering positive results in the wake of
Washington’s costly military interventions in
the Middle East and central role in setting off
the Great Recession.

Already, military planners see gaps in U.S.

preparedness versus China and Russia. Asia
EDGE, the Indo-Pacific Business Forum, the
BUILD Act, and other recent U.S. initiatives to
address an estimated $26 trillion
infrastructure investment need in Asia
through 2030 are advancing development
assistance at the working level, but the U.S.
approach has been generally restrained by
limited resources and coordination between
policymakers and the private sector. The
Trump administration’s ongoing assault on
free trade norms and disdain for global
institutions and multilateral initiatives, like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Paris climate
accord, further emphasize the current lack of
cohesive policy in Washington.

Even Trump’s early reluctance to challenge

countries like Myanmar and the Philippines on
their human rights offenses, as well as John
Bolton’s departure from his national security
advisor post – our third in less than three
years – underscores the administration’s
troubling breakdown in foreign policy and
national security decision-making.

While most Americans remain pro-

engagement and trade, there is also waning
domestic buy-in – especially among younger
voters – for looking after alliances and limiting
the influence of major competitors like China
and Russia. With the ongoing displacement of
U.S. manufacturing by cheap labor in Asia and
new technologies like AI, Americans have
increasingly harbored a narrow preference for
elected officials who oppose foreign policies
which do not recognizably benefit the United
States. This crisis of confidence is illustrated by
the Republican Party’s embrace of Trump’s
“America first” ideology; the recent push by a
handful of Democratic presidential hopefuls
for a more conservative, less muscular foreign
policy; and the growing tendency for
corporate and other domestic special interests
to tie the administration’s hands overseas.

Given these macro-trends, a big challenge for

U.S. policymakers going forward will be to
manage foreign expectations of U.S.
commitment to the Indo-Pacific, even as
Washington’s attention is increasingly diverted
by its shifting balance of power with China.

The token interest and occasional

transactionalism with which Trump treats
partner and competitor nations alike has
already had repercussions for U.S. alliance
management in Asia. 

The ongoing tailspin in Japan-South Korea

relations is a prime example. The Trump
administration’s reluctance to intervene
publicly in the politically-charged
disagreements between Tokyo and Seoul –
though well-founded in its concern for
appearing too heavy-handed – provides
oxygen for a diplomatic coup by China. Beijing
is already posturing to stage an intervention,
urging the two sides at a recent ministerial to
move forward with a trilateral free trade deal.

Analysts attribute the current tensions to

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s
unilateral political motives for reversing his
disgraced predecessor’s efforts to resolve the
legacy of Japan’s colonization of Korea. But
while history and domestic politics are
sustained drivers of the bilateral relationship,
they do not fully explain why the two
countries’ perceptions of each other have
fluctuated so wildly just in the last two years.

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Rather, the recent downturn may also be

symptomatic of a series of diplomatic missteps
by the United States. In 2015, for instance, the
Obama administration angered South Korean
civil society when it dismissed Seoul’s comfort
women protests against Japan, calling them a
“cheap” ploy by nationalists – this came off as
insensitive and required further clarification
to rally both sides to a compromise.
Notwithstanding a trilateral intelligence-
sharing pact in 2016, the United States under
Trump has continued to behave erratically,
criticizing its bilateral trade relationships with
both countries, demanding favorable alliance
cost-sharing terms from Seoul (and soon
Tokyo), and reducing military exercises on the
Korean peninsula in exchange for
questionable concessions toward
denuclearization from North Korea.
Washington should not be responsible for
treating fractures between Japan and South
Korea, but it has the ability to play an
important role in helping the two sides work
out their differences.

Pacific and Indian ocean states vital for their

location at various military and commercial
chokepoints are also hesitant to embrace the
“free and open” vision. While the ASEAN
member states, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives,
and even Pakistan chafe at China’s “string of
pearls” strategy to extend its sea lines of
communication to the Middle East and Africa,
their dependency on economic incentives
from Beijing forces them to respond flexibly
and ambiguously – both pivoting to and away
from Washington. As a result, the region
threatens to become more unstable, with
states forced to look to their own needs first
absent a coherent rules-based order.

In the South China Sea, ASEAN remains alert

to the limitations of U.S. “saber-rattling” in
response to China’s asymmetric provocations.
Leaders like the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte
are wary of relying too heavily on a distant
foreign power whose military primacy
regional analysts increasingly doubt. Their
uncertainty also reflects the inherent
constraints on U.S. deterrence of threatening
major-power war over small stakes,
sometimes discussed in the context of
Washington’s Article 5 commitments to Japan’s
defense of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.

ASEAN’s meandering code of conduct (COC)

negotiations with China will only further
hinder the United States. While the talks
would advance a framework for restricting
Chinese behavior in the South China Sea,
China’s de facto control over many of the
disputed islands suggests its military presence
there will eventually become the new status
quo – COC or no COC. Moreover, Beijing’s
demands for the COC to restrict joint military
exercises with external powers – if accepted –
would undermine ASEAN’s efforts to keep the
United States in play in Southeast Asia.

The situation is similar in South Asia. India’s

recent border skirmishes with China and
clashes with Pakistan over Jammu and
Kashmir have incentivized a more assertive
Indian foreign policy centered around
expanded military cooperation and
intelligence-sharing with the United States. On
the other hand, Trump’s criticisms of India’s
trade protectionism, and local skittishness
about U.S.-China competition, are prompting
no small amount of hedging in New Delhi.

***

Given Washington’s obsession with its

intensifying competition with China, the
United States faces accusations of detachment
and insensitivity from small- and middle-
power Asia. Regional fears of abandonment
often manifest as concern about U.S.
adherence to “ASEAN centrality.”
This anxiety is misguided. While U.S. Asia
policymakers may increasingly appear single-
minded in their focus on China, Americans
have generally sought a broad perspective of
the region. A close reading indeed shows that
the U.S. public is less concerned than
Washington about China. Their optimism is
well-founded given the high level of recent U.S.
engagement with the Indo-Pacific, in terms of
total volume of trade and investment flows to
and number of domestic jobs supported by the
region, as well as the strength of travel and
tourism, cultural and educational exchanges,
and even sister state/city partnerships.

However, the United States can also do a better

job of communicating that its efforts in the
region are not entirely about countering
Beijing. To the extent that China’s impact on
the region is not all negative, the Trump
administration can do more to steer
development policy toward a place where
sustainable and inclusive governance
principles – such as transparency,
accountability, and the empowerment of
marginalized local stakeholders – become
common practice.

This expanded perspective will be particularly

significant for U.S. and allied efforts to finance
“quality” infrastructure development and
capacity-building in countries like Vietnam
and Cambodia, that were treated as
geopolitical pawns during the Cold War.
Indeed, Washington’s response to the Mekong
delta’s complex water disputes with upstream
countries like China, specifically regarding the
negative environmental and economic impacts
of various dam projects, could serve as a
telling barometer of its support for best
practices in this historically tokenized part of
the region.

In a geopolitical landscape as diverse and

tumultuous as the Indo-Pacific, the path to
good governance will be fraught with setbacks.
But in the long-run, the United States’
enduring presence in Asia can do more rather
than less to convince dubious countries of a
rules-based system’s ability to foster
conditions for political stability and economic
strength over time.

Elliot Silverberg is a fellow at Georgetown

University’s Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy. 

Matthew Sullivan is a projects coordinator at

the East-West Center in Washington. 

The views expressed in this article are the

authors’ alone and do not reflect those of the
East-West Center.

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