Joint exercises by the Chinese military near Taiwan occurred in April, as the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command announced it was conducting a “Strait Thunder-2025A” drill in parts of the Taiwan Strait. File Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA
President Donald Trump’s upcoming diplomatic sweep through Asia — first to Malaysia for the ASEAN Summit and then to South Korea for the APEC leaders’ meeting, with a pivotal sideline encounter planned with China’s Xi Jinping — signals that Washington is recalibrating its power projection in the Indo-Pacific.
Far from a routine tour, the itinerary underscores the administration’s intent to fuse economic statecraft with strategic deterrence at a time when the region faces mounting tensions over trade, technology and territorial control.
For allies and rivals alike, the message is unmistakable: The United States is reasserting its presence in a region that has become the epicenter of global competition.
From the contested waters of the South China Sea to the boardrooms shaping semiconductor supply chains, Trump’s Asia tour is more than symbolic diplomacy — it’s a declaration that economic leverage and military posture now move in tandem. How Beijing, Seoul and the broader ASEAN bloc interpret this choreography may well define the next phase of the Indo-Pacific order.
At the heart of Trump’s strategy are three defining pillars: identifying China as the primary rival; projecting overwhelming military strength to deter its moves in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait; and pushing regional partners to shoulder more defense responsibilities.
For conservative thinkers and institutions like the Heritage Foundation, this recalibration is long overdue — a pivot of U.S. attention and resources toward the region they believe will determine the balance of global power in the 21st century.
But strategy comes with trade-offs. By elevating the Indo-Pacific to the top of America’s foreign policy agenda, Washington risks overstretch, transactional strains with allies and escalation with China. For all its clarity, Trump’s approach may prove politically, financially and diplomatically unsustainable.
A contest over power and trade routes
No other region carries greater weight in the century ahead. The South China Sea is not just a flashpoint — it is the artery of global commerce, with one-third of the world’s shipping passing through its lanes.
China’s military buildup and fortified outposts on disputed islands have jolted Washington into action. Beijing’s parallel expansion through the Belt and Road Initiative has deepened U.S. concerns that China is not only asserting regional dominance, but also reshaping the global order.
Trump officials have responded with a harder edge: freedom of navigation operations, expanded deployments under Indo-Pacific Command and intensified pressure on allies to boost defense spending. Japan and South Korea are being pressed to raise military budgets to 3.5% of gross domestic product, deepen interoperability with the United States and collaborate more closely with Australia and India.
Yet, Washington’s framing of the Indo-Pacific as a battlefield risks narrowing the region’s broader agenda. Southeast Asia is grappling with fragile supply chains, climate vulnerability and economic recovery — areas in which China has often been more proactive with financing and infrastructure than the United States.
From pivot to power play
The current strategy represents a decisive break from the Obama-era “pivot to Asia.” Where Obama emphasized trade through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and multilateral diplomacy, Trump’s team sees bilateral leverage and military deterrence as the only realistic tools.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made this clear at the Shangri-La Dialogue earlier this year, branding China a “real and imminent threat” and pledging that Washington and its allies would erect a “deterrent shield” against Beijing’s ambitions.
Aid-heavy engagement has vanished. USAID has been gutted — folded into the State Department, with a proposed $30 billion cut in foreign assistance. For Trump 2.0, stability is measured in military deployments, not development budgets.
As secretary of state. Marco Rubio has emerged as the chief voice of Trump’s “America First” policy in Asia. At the ASEAN meetings in July and other regional forums, he reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to a “free, open and secure” Indo-Pacific — while issuing blunt warnings over Beijing’s growing assertiveness.
Rubio cast China’s moves in the South China Sea as direct threats to U.S. interests, signaling a harder edge to U.S. diplomacy: strengthening alliances, boosting deterrence and making clear that countering Chinese power now anchors America’s regional strategy.
Risks and challenges
The sharpness of Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy is also its greatest vulnerability. Frequent U.S. patrols and exercises in contested waters heighten the risk of accidents at sea or in the air. Without crisis-management mechanisms, even a minor collision could spiral into confrontation with China.
Demands for greater burden-sharing have strained alliances, with Tokyo and Canberra backing a tougher U.S. line, but bristling at threats of troop withdrawals if “payments” fall short, while Southeast Asian states fear being cornered into choosing between Washington and Beijing.
Economically, the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the tariff war have left allies doubting Washington’s staying power in trade, especially as China presses ahead with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Meanwhile, America’s heavy tilt toward the Indo-Pacific raises questions about its ability to manage crises in Europe and the Middle East, underscoring the danger of strategic overstretch.
On top of this, partisan divides and the unpredictability of Trump’s “America First” approach fuel uncertainty about whether U.S. commitments will endure beyond the 2026 midterms, pushing allies to hedge against potential policy whiplash.
Regional reactions
Regional responses to Trump’s hardline Indo-Pacific push are mixed. Japan and Australia back Washington’s show of force, but remain uneasy about its staying power.
Southeast Asia is split. Vietnam quietly welcomes U.S. patrols, while Malaysia and Indonesia steer clear of taking sides, and the Philippines swings between Beijing and Washington.
India stays active in the Quad, but guards its strategic autonomy.
China strikes a defiant tone, branding the United States as a destabilizer, while doubling down on military buildup and trade diplomacy. The upshot is a region that leans on American power, yet doubts its consistency.
Analysts, like Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, in an article in Foreign Affairs, argues that a more sustainable U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific will require more than military deterrence.
Reviving or rejoining a regional trade pact would give partners an economic alternative to China. Reaffirming treaty commitments — without punitive burden-sharing demands — could restore alliance confidence.
Expanding crisis-management tools, such as hotlines with Beijing, would help prevent accidental escalation, and broadening engagement to include climate, infrastructure and health initiatives could generate goodwill beyond security ties.
Elevating ASEAN forums alongside the Quad would reassure smaller states of their importance, while bipartisan backing in Washington and stable budgets remain essential to anchor U.S. commitments beyond Trump’s tenure.
The bottom line
Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy has injected urgency into U.S. engagement with Asia, making clear that Washington sees China not as a competitor, but as its foremost strategic threat. Yet, clarity has come at the cost of balance. For now, the United States projects undeniable strength, but its unpredictability and narrow security focus risk undermining the very alliances it seeks to strengthen.
The South China Sea is now the stage where America’s global credibility is being tested. The question is whether Washington can translate deterrence into a durable, comprehensive strategy that reassures allies while managing competition with China.
James Borton is the editor-in-chief of news aggregator South China Sea NewsWire, author of Harvesting the Waves: How Blue Parks Shape Policy, Politics and Peacebuilding in the South China Sea, and a non-resident senior fellow at Johns Hopkins/SAIS Foreign Policy Institute.
