Why Asean must stay nimble to survive US-China trade squeeze

Asean faces a challenge to remain relevant in light of an increasingly transactional United States under the Donald Trump administration, observers warn, even as they hail the bloc’s large inflows of trade from global superpowers.At the South China Morning Post’s China Conference: Southeast Asia 2026 in Jakarta on Tuesday, chairman of Malaysian Investment Development Authority Tengku Zafrul Aziz said that Association of Southeast Asian Nations members presented a united front in handling Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs last May, calling it a “test of Asean centrality”.Zafrul, who was Malaysia’s trade and investment minister at the time, recalled how Asean economic ministers discussed how they would respond and agreed they would state they were not in support of the unilateral decision, that they would support multilateralism and that they would engage the US.“That shows that sometimes it is difficult … but still, we address by engaging,” he said, adding that the success of Asean as a result of the economic spillover of the bloc being united should also not be taken for granted.Chairman of Malaysian Investment Development Authority Tengku Zafrul Aziz attends an SCMP event at Rosewood Hotel on November 6, 2025. Photo: SCMPIn a separate panel, Bernardino Moningka Vega, vice-chairman of foreign affairs at the Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin Indonesia), said that amid a turbulent geopolitical landscape last year, the US remained Asean’s top investor while China came in second.