KEN MORIYASU

WASHINGTON — As Asia awaits the return of Donald Trump to the White House next January, U.S. allies across the region are racing to get up to speed with his new administration picks — and where exactly they will draw the line in taking a new, “common sense” approach to foreign policy.

The day after Trump secured the presidency for the Republican Party, Sen. Marco Rubio focused the minds of U.S. allies and their Washington diplomats when he invoked what he called common sense in calling for an end to war in Ukraine.

Rubio was formally picked to be incoming secretary of state on Nov. 13, with China hawk Rep. Mike Waltz appointed national security adviser and staunch Trump supporter Rep. Elise Stefanik chosen as ambassador to the United Nations. Pete Hegseth, a veteran, Fox News commentator and NATO skeptic with no previous government experience, was selected for the defense secretary role, with Trump making a point of commending Hegseth’s “America First” commitment.

Trump’s picks resonate in a global security situation much different and more precarious than when he first entered the White House in January 2017. On top of China’s increasingly muscular stance on Taiwan and defending its stated interests in the South China Sea, war continues to rage in Ukraine nearly three years since Moscow’s invasion began and the Middle East teeters on the brink more than a year after Israel launched its offensive in Gaza.

“The Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong and standing up to Russia, but at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war and it needs to be brought to a conclusion,” Rubio told broadcaster NBC on Nov. 6. “There has to also be some common sense here.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, pictured during a Trump election campaign event in October in Las Vegas, is a hardliner on China but has also talked up the need for a “common sense” approach to foreign policy.   © Reuters

Rubio gave a pointed example of what might drive “America First” common sense for Trump’s administration in comments published in an opinion piece for Nikkei Asia last year on how to deal with China. “America — weakened by deindustrialization, technological theft and cultural strife — needs to get this right,” Rubio wrote, calling on incumbent President Joe Biden to  “get to work on building an anti-Chinese Communist Party coalition, especially in the Indo-Pacific.”

His post-election reference to “common sense” came as an echo of comments by Trump’s Vice President-elect JD Vance, who used the term no less than seven times in a debate with Democrat rival, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

And a post on X, formerly Twitter, by influential former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, also in the running to land a national security job in Trump’s second term, underlined the message.

“The foreign policy of the ‘rules-based international order’ and ‘alliances are sacred’ has led us to these dire straits with war everywhere and we’re overstretched, with the American people tired of forever wars,” Colby wrote in the wake of the election. “The way to salvage our international approach is common sense.”

Within hours of reports emerging on the new White House diplomacy appointments, the stakes for global security were underlined. North Korea, with thousands of troops now in and around Ukraine assisting Moscow with its war effort, formally ratified a mutual defense treaty with Russia that calls on each side to come to the other’s aid should their territory come under attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida talk after laying flowers in front of the Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park during the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2023.   © Reuters

The contrast between calls for common sense and support for rules-based international order under the outgoing Biden administration left Japanese officials in particular among U.S. allies searching for answers.

Under Fumio Kishida, prime minister until the start of last month, Japan has installed defense of the rules-based international order as the centerpiece of its foreign policy, launching a massive push to build up its military in 2022, worth $400 billion at the time, that has since stalled on the weak yen and capacity constraints.

Japan may also fear mixed signals from the incoming U.S. administration. While Trump has systematically called on allies to beef up their own defense spending rather than rely on the U.S., his pick to be new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard posted on X on the eve of last December’s anniversary of Pearl Harbor, asking, “Is the remilitarization of Japan, which is presently underway, truly a good idea?”

In terms of maintaining international order, at its Japan-hosted summit in May 2023 — in Hiroshima, Kishida’s hometown — the Group of Seven spelled out in its official communique that Russia’s war in Ukraine is a “breach of fundamental norms, rules and principles of the international community.” The statement continued: “A growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest.”

For ex-Pentagon official Colby, the priority is that the U.S. no longer has the luxury of taking a “primacist” approach to foreign policy — acting as the world’s policeman. Instead, the U.S. needs to focus primarily on preventing China from establishing hegemony in Asia, he says.

For Taiwan, a U.S. that is focused on China is a welcome development. But Colby has also spoken about the need for allies and partners to do more, “much more,” in terms of their own defense spending.

This could put the White House in collision with Taiwan’s opposition-led legislature, where main opposition Kuomintang figures have signaled reluctance to significantly increase military spending.

Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University, said that the change in stance on Ukraine within the Republican Party signals that American support for its allies and partners is finite and limited. “Taiwan may look at this with concerned eyes and suspect if something bigger comes along, or if Taiwan is no longer as meaningful, the U.S. will pull the plug on support for Taiwan,” Nachman said.

Drastic changes may also await South Korea.

In the wake of Trump’s triumph, the most urgent security issue facing South Korea is the possibility that the incoming president could follow through on threats to either make Seoul pay far more for the hosting of U.S. troops on its soil or withdraw those troops.

South Korean officials are also watching to see if Trump attempts to restart diplomatic engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol wasn’t in office during the first Trump term, but is expected to face questions from the U.S. president-elect about the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence in the country.   © Reuters

Trump and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol spoke by telephone shortly after Trump’s victory and agreed to schedule a meeting soon.

“Trump’s main task in Asia is going to be ensuring that China stays within a safe frame, both in terms of trade and security, and to do that he’s going to need to work with Japan and South Korea,” said Kim Byung-ki, a professor of international security and development at Korea University.

“He might talk about Japan and South Korea being free riders, but those are just his emotional expressions,” Kim said. “The fact is that the U.S. gains a lot from being able to base its troops in Japan and South Korea. He can say that he wants to reduce or withdraw troops, but there are deterrents to that, both legal and bureaucratic. He can’t say that he wants troops out and have it happen just like that.”

Meanwhile, North Korea is not going to meet him just for meeting’s sake, Kim added. “For those meetings to mean anything, you need to first have bureaucrats lay out the goals and a framework, then you need to have the political will to achieve a breakthrough. What Trump did last time was he held meetings without laying any of the bureaucratic groundwork and he didn’t get anything done.”

In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved quickly to speak to Trump shortly after his victory, raising two of the country’s key strategic interests: trade and defense, specifically AUKUS, the three-way defense pact with both the U.S. and the U.K.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak deliver remarks on the AUKUS partnership at U.S. Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California U.S. in 2023.   © Reuters

Officials have projected confidence about the future of the AUKUS deal, signed under Biden, which will see Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. After all, AUKUS is set to see billions of Australian dollars transferred to the U.S and U.K. to expand their shipyards to accommodate extra submarine construction.

Albanese reckons the middle power can play a mediating role between the U.S and China. “We’re trusted, our word matters,” he said this week.

But already, the Australians seem to have fumbled the ball. Following the election, serving Australian Ambassador to the U.S., Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister, had to issue a statement explaining he had deleted previously published commentary and social media posts critical of Trump “out of respect for the office of President of the United States.”

Meanwhile Foreign Minister Penny Wong told Australian broadcaster ABC shortly after the U.S. election that she’d met with Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss AUKUS on a recent trip to Washington. Trump, however, said in recent days that Pompeo, like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, won’t be joining his second administration.

Across the road from the Australian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue is the Philippine embassy, where for months, veteran Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez has been reaching out to former Trump officials to discuss a potential second Trump administration.

A Chinese Coast Guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine vessel on a mission to resupply Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, March 5, 2024.    © Reuters

Having been ambassador since 2017, Romualdez has interacted with the officials since Trump’s first period in office. Hence, he told reporters in a briefing after the election, dealing with the U.S. will be “business as usual” for the Philippines.

The U.S. defense establishment has used the word “ironclad” to describe ties between Manila and Washington, Romualdez said.

“That commitment, I think, will stay, and this has been carried on by the Biden administration, and it will be carried on by the Trump administration.”

Still, the international environment has changed dramatically since Trump’s first term.

“North Korea sending troops to Russia to fight Ukraine is a game changer,” one Asian diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If North Korean troops gain combat experience or test new weapons, that would increase future risks for other Asian countries.”

More than ever, former Japan PM Kishida’s slogan that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” is true, the diplomat said.

source : asia.nikkei