Trump’s Asia Gambit: Can the US Really Overtake China?
Presence matters; leaders take global powers seriously who show up
By: Salman Rafi Sheikh
President Donald Trump’s recent sprint across Southeast Asia – a flurry of reciprocal-trade announcements, a high-profile ceasefire ceremony between Thailand and Cambodia, and the promise of talks with Xi Jinping in South Korea – was intended to do one thing loudly: show that the US still matters in Asia.
With Trump dancing to performances in Malaysia and assuring the region “that the United States is with you 100 percent and [that] we intend to be a strong partner for many generations,” the optics and the rhetoric have been undeniable even if the trade terms negotiated are onerous. But the deeper question raised by the trip is structural rather than rhetorical: can this kind of transactional diplomacy reverse China’s deep economic lead in the region?
The empirical backdrop matters. The Lowy Institute’s 2025 Asia Power Index finds China to be Asia’s largest economic player, with the strongest economic relationships and broad investment networks across Southeast Asia. Most importantly, Beijing, even with its surveillance state and bullying tactics in the South China Sea, has overcome the US in terms of popularity. Although the Lowy Institute report shows China’s lead by a tiny margin of just 1 percent, China’s rise has been palpable, translating into a visible structural advantage measured in trade volume, infrastructure finance, and persistent supply-chain integration.
In short, China’s footprint in the region is not merely political theatre; it is baked into how Southeast Asian economies function. Plus, Beijing’s engagement is multilateral, which aligns with regional associations like Asean’s own largely regional and global outlook. The region is known more for thinking regionally than extra-regionally, a policy vision that China understands more than the US. It is for this lack of understanding that Trump, for instance, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific treaty in 2016 and why he didn’t attend the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) meeting in South Korea on this visit.
Still, Washington’s primary objective remains to tackle China. So what is Trump’s strategy? In practice, it has three visible strands: spectacle, leverage, and hedging. The spectacle is the president showing up – the photo ops, the signing ceremonies, the public mediation of a border ceasefire – that seeks to reassert the US presence after years when many in Asia felt Washington had been distracted. By brokering peace, even if more performance than reality, the drudgery having been accomplished by local players, Trump wants not just to win the Nobel Peace Prize next year, but he also wants to indicate Washington’s continued geopolitical relevance in the region.
The leverage is being reinforced by tying, at least rhetorically, trade access and tariff relief to political cooperation on issues from critical minerals to export controls. The White House framed new reciprocal trade pacts as conditional carrots offered in exchange for market openness and cooperation.
The hedging element of Trump’s strategy may be his smartest play yet and the one Beijing should worry about most. Southeast Asian leaders have been trying to perfect the art of strategic hedging, staying close to China for growth while relying on the US for security. By reasserting Washington’s presence through deals and diplomacy, Trump isn’t just returning to the region; he’s giving Asean capitals something they crave: leverage vis-à-vis Beijing. When states like Malaysia sign new trade accords with the US or countries like Thailand join a US-brokered peace process, they demonstrate to Beijing that Southeast Asia still has options.
This visibility matters: it lets governments negotiate with China from a position of strength rather than dependency. The risk, of course, is that Washington remains a tool rather than a partner. In fact, the strategy risks reducing Washington’s presence to merely a convenient counterweight, not a cornerstone. But as the Lowy Institute’s 2025 Asia Power Index shows, with China’s dominance nearly entrenched, even acting as Beijing’s counterweight may be enough for the US to keep the balance from tipping permanently and irreversibly in Beijing’s favor.
Those moves have immediate strengths. First, presence matters in diplomacy; leaders take global powers seriously who show up and broker outcomes. Trump’s role in the Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire, which commits both sides to withdraw heavy weapons and place observers on the border, translated symbolic leadership into a tangible stability dividend at a volatile moment. Second, the trade commitments create short-term incentives for ASEAN economies to diversify suppliers and buyers, and to align some regulatory standards more closely with the US market. Third, the combination of security signaling and economic offers revives the old US playbook of being a balancer rather than simply a rival.
But these strengths sit beside significant weaknesses. Many headline announcements are frameworks or reciprocal-trade agreements in principle, not fully negotiated and/or ratified treaties. Implementation will require time, congressional buy-in, and budgetary commitments — the kind of sustained statecraft that has been uneven in US policy toward Asia. Trump, therefore, faces the uphill—but possible—task of translating the optics and symbolism of his visit into concrete policy frameworks that are actually implemented.
The ceasefire, for all its welcome effects, is fragile: border conflicts are notoriously difficult to resolve without persistent monitoring and confidence-building measures. Most crucially, US economic credibility is hamstrung by an inconsistent mix of protectionist rhetoric and selective liberalization; Southeast Asian states remember how quickly US commitments can change with domestic politics and administrations.
There is also an arithmetic problem. China’s advantage is structural and cumulative. Decades of trade integration, large-scale infrastructure finance via the Belt and Road and other mechanisms, and a contiguous manufacturing ecosystem make China not just a buyer or investor but the operating system for much of regional trade. Reversing requires building comparable economic architecture – not headline-driven deals – in areas such as ports, connectivity, long-term investment funds, and production networks. That is expensive, slow, and politically demanding, even for Trump.
If the goal is to overtake China as the region’s primary external partner, Washington will need to move from episodic spectacle to structural strategy. Practically, that means three interlocking priorities. First, Washington must actively convert frameworks into durable pacts. Negotiations must be deepened so that the so-called reciprocal agreements are legally binding and include dispute-settlement, investment protections, and clear implementation timelines. Short headlines are useless without durable institutions.
Second, the US needs to offer competitive and predictable financing for ports, power, and digital infrastructure, not merely policy papers. That requires public-private vehicles, strong multilateral coordination (including with and through regional development banks), and political willingness to underwrite long horizons. Third, Southeast Asian partners prize predictability. A US Asia strategy that survives elections and domestic turbulence, backed by a transparent roadmap and multiyear funding, will be far more persuasive than a single tour. From the Obama era “Asia Pivot” to Trump’s latest visit, inconsistency towards the region has been the hallmark of the US policy.
None of this is easy. China’s geographic proximity, integrated supply chains, and the sheer scale of its markets give it an advantage that a president’s tour alone cannot erase. But the trip matters for what it signals: Americans can still shape outcomes in the region if they commit resources, institutional continuity, and credible economic alternatives. For now, the balance of influence remains tilted toward Beijing; Trump’s tour nudges the needle but does not yet upend the scoreboard.
That should temper both triumphalism and fatalism. Policymakers in Washington should treat the tour as a start line, not a finish line. Southeast Asia will not choose a partner in a binary, Cold War-like sense; it will continue to hedge, i.e., extract benefits from both Beijing and Washington. The long game for the US, therefore, must be to not only make hedging harder to justify by offering reliable, deep, and institutionalized alternatives but also play it so that hedging remains in its favor. Absent that, even the most dramatic diplomatic moments will remain exactly that: dramatic, ephemeral, and unable to displace a regional order largely built on China’s economic gravity.
Dr Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor on diplomatic affairs to Asia Sentinel.