Tariff threats and ASEAN
- ORF published analysis saying the U.S. uses tariff threats while China emphasizes ASEAN processes in Southeast Asia. - The piece frames tariffs as part of a broader regional recalibration between Washington and Beijing. - It suggests economic tools are becoming strategic levers in Asia’s shifting order (orfonline.org).
A new Southeast Asia fault line is opening on trade: Washington is using tariff pressure, while Beijing is working through Association of Southeast Asian Nations forums and deals. (orfonline.org) Prisie Patnayak wrote in an Observer Research Foundation analysis published April 23, 2026, that the United States hit several Southeast Asian countries with tariffs after President Donald Trump’s April 2, 2025 “Liberation Day” announcement. She wrote that Washington later tightened rules-of-origin enforcement on goods moving through Southeast Asian ports after a one-year U.S.-China trade truce reached at the Busan summit in October 2025. (orfonline.org) The Association of Southeast Asian Nations publicly protested those tariffs on April 10, 2025. In that statement, ASEAN economic ministers said the bloc was the United States’ fifth-largest trading partner in 2024, its largest source of foreign direct investment in 2024, and its second-largest trading partner that year. (asean.org) ASEAN’s answer has been process and centrality — its long-running formula for keeping big powers inside ASEAN-led meetings instead of letting them set terms alone. In an October 9, 2024 leaders’ declaration, ASEAN reaffirmed an “ASEAN-centred” regional architecture, support for multilateralism, and peaceful dispute settlement under international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. (asean.org) China has leaned into that system. ASEAN’s own overview says the bloc adopted a 2026-2030 plan of action for the ASEAN-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in August 2025, and leaders at the 28th ASEAN-China Summit in Kuala Lumpur on October 28, 2025 welcomed Beijing’s proposal to make 2026 the year marking the partnership’s fifth anniversary. (asean.org) Trade numbers help explain why Beijing’s approach carries weight. China’s government said on September 8, 2025 that China had been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 16 straight years, with $597 billion in trade in the first seven months of 2025 and cumulative two-way investment above $450 billion by the end of July. (english.www.gov.cn) The commercial track also moved forward while tariff tensions lingered. ASEAN and China had substantially concluded negotiations on the 3.0 upgrade of their free trade area by October 2024, and Chinese official releases said the upgrade adds chapters on digital economy, green economy, and supply-chain connectivity. (asean.org; english.www.gov.cn) Patnayak argues the security implications are now tied more tightly to trade than Southeast Asian governments once hoped. Her piece says a U.S. need for Chinese rare earths and processed minerals could narrow Washington’s room to push back against Beijing in the South China Sea, even as China keeps its maritime posture firm. (orfonline.org) That concern lands in Manila this year. The Philippines is ASEAN chair for 2026, according to ASEAN’s official chairmanship page, and Patnayak writes that the chairmanship coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Philippines’ 2016 Hague arbitration victory — a legal win she says ASEAN still cannot easily translate into collective security outcomes. (asean.org; orfonline.org) The immediate contest, then, is not only over tariffs or truce terms. It is over whether Southeast Asia’s next bargains are written through U.S. pressure on market access or through ASEAN tables where China has spent years building economic and diplomatic leverage. (orfonline.org; asean.org)
