| SINGAPORE — When pressed on the thorny matter, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a quick zinger. He
was here at Asia’s preeminent security forum to talk “tanks, not
tariffs.” Concerns over the White House’s protectionism and its impacts
on a region knitted together by trade were, in other words, not his
remit. Hegseth was shrugging off a
question that came from an audience of delegates that had heard his
Saturday morning address at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a summit convened
annually in Singapore for more than two decades. His speech received a
mixed reaction. Hegseth urged Asian partners to emulate a handful of
European nations that have boosted their defense spending to 5 percent
of gross domestic product, raising eyebrows in a part of the world where
military spending is already spiking and many developing countries are
still working fitfully to lift citizens out of poverty. But
the Pentagon chief also spoke in terms that were probably welcome at
the forum, which is organized by the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, a British think tank. He said the Trump
administration was “not here to preach” to other countries about human
rights and climate change or to cajole Asian countries to “embrace or
adopt policies or ideologies.” Rather,
Hegseth said, the United States wants to “work with you where our shared
interests align for peace and prosperity.” He reiterated that the Trump
administration did not seek conflict with China, but warned of the
“imminent” threat posed by a China that wants to shift the military
balance in the Asia-Pacific region. He said the U.S. “will not be pushed
out of this critical region, and we will not let our allies and
partners be subordinated and intimidated.” Unlike
previous years, Beijing did not send a top defense official to offer a
riposte to the U.S. on Sunday. Hegseth told Asian leaders in the room
that “we share your vision of peace and stability, of prosperity and
security, and we are here to stay,” stressing that the Indo-Pacific was
the “priority theater” for Washington strategists. “There
was a constant reiteration that America’s strategic intent is peace,
and that’s welcome,” Richard Marles, Australia’s deputy prime minister
and defense minister, told me, referring to Hegseth’s remarks. He
cheered Hegseth’s embrace of the region’s strategic importance and
pointed to how Australia is already engaged in “the biggest peacetime
increase in our defense spending since the end of the Second World War.” For other leaders, President Donald Trump’s trade war was harder to set aside. A
week prior, it had loomed at the center of deliberations during a
leaders meeting of ASEAN, the main bloc of Southeast Asian states. Major
exporters such as Vietnam and Cambodia face some of the biggest tariffs
imposed by Trump, apart from the 145 percent levy slapped earlier on
China. Unlike Beijing, most other governments do not want to pursue
retaliatory measures against the U.S., but may find themselves leaning
further into their deep economic partnerships with China in a bid to
offset the blow of Trump’s tariffs. In
his special address, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim decried
“the onslaught of arbitrary imposition of trade restrictions” imposed by
the Trump administration and insisted that trade was not simply “a soft
power indulgence” but at the heart of all that stabilizes and brings
growth to Southeast Asia. “What holds
true for us holds true elsewhere — where trade flourishes, stability
follows,” Anwar said. “When it falters, the consequences ripple far
beyond any one region.” There was
skepticism about U.S. demands for boosting defense spending. Gen
Nakatani, Japan’s defense minister, pushed back against suggestions that
his government would pursue new military acquisitions from the U.S. as
part of a deal to ease new Trump administration tariffs. Mohd
Faiz Abdullah, chairman of the Institute of Strategic and International
Studies in Malaysia and a top adviser to Anwar, said it was “mind
boggling” and “nonsensical” to expect Asian governments to drum up 5
percent of their GDP in military acquisitions. It would be far better,
he suggested, for the U.S. to deepen economic engagement in the region. “The
ideal [U.S.] role would be to muscle up for the economy. Show that you
really want to spend in ASEAN, you want to cooperate, you want to buy,
you want to sell,” Faiz told me. “Take away all that unpredictable,
whimsical trade policy. Once the economy is pretty strong … the
geopolitical side will take care of itself.” For now, the uncertainty provoked by Trump is sending jitters across continents.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, also came to Singapore
and used her moment on the forum’s podium to stress how economic
interdependence can be its own military deterrent. She seemed to
position her continental bloc as a productive collaborator with Asia —
and perhaps an alternative to a more erratic, protectionist America that
doesn’t seem as invested in the rules-based international order as it
once was. “The countries around the
world are really looking at us because we are the predictable and
reliable partner,” Kallas told me on the sidelines of the meeting.
“Superpowers sometimes overestimate their own strength. But I think it
is a time of alliances.” French
President Emmanuel Macron, who delivered the keynote address Friday
evening, made a similar argument, extending his own vision for
“strategic autonomy” for Europe to form “new alliances” with Asia.
Despite the vagueness of the gesture, Macron settled on a theme echoed
throughout the weekend: that “division between the two superpowers and
an instruction to all the others that you have to choose a side” between
the U.S. and China is something no one wants. “If
we have to choose sides,” concluded Chan Chun Sing, Singapore’s defense
minister, “may we choose the side of principles — principles that
uphold a global order where we do not descend into the law of the
jungle, where the mighty do what they wish and the weak suffer what they
must.” |