’Shock. Frustration. Anger.’ Trump’s tariff letters roil Asian allies
The administration's missives reupping — but also delaying — his tariff threats are further souring the mood toward the US ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to the region.
America’s Asian trading partners are reacting to President Donald Trump’s latest threats of tariffs with frustration and disbelief, after months of what they believed were good-faith efforts to make a deal.
“To give adjectives to the reaction or response, it would be, number one, shock. Number two, frustration. And number three, anger,” a former Japanese official said in an interview.
Trump unveiled letters to 14 foreign governments Monday — 10 of them from Asia — threatening new tariffs on Aug. 1 unless their countries made renewed efforts to broker deals. They landed with a thud in the middle of the night on the other side of the Pacific, where governments were not given a heads-up before the letters were sent, according to two people from countries that received the letters, who like others interviewed were granted anonymity to disclose private details of talks.
Conversations with six foreign officials, four former officials, and others familiar with the views of the Asian governments that received the letters revealed a shared sense of exasperation over Trump’s approach. It is poised to further sour the mood among more than a dozen Asian foreign ministers gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, later this week for an annual summit hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio will also attend.
“We have no idea what the hell he’s sending, who he’s sending it to or how he’s sending it,” said an official with a government targeted with one of Trump’s initial tariff letters.
A White House official in a statement to POLITICO objected to the claim that they did not adequately give trading partners a heads-up. “There was a good faith effort on our part to transmit ... these letters via normal diplomatic channels to their intended recipients before we made them public,” they said.
More problematic for the administration, Asian officials predicted the decidedly undiplomatic moves could undo years of efforts by U.S. governments to build stronger ties in the region, particularly with rising Southeast Asian economies like Vietnam and Cambodia which have long been firmly in China’s economic and political orbit.
“In the main meeting there will be polite smiles — that’s the ASEAN way — but bilaterally there’ll be a firmer message that the U.S. is creating a big problem here,” affirmed Scot Marciel, U.S. ambassador for ASEAN affairs during the Obama administration. ASEAN members include Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore. Six of those countries got tariff letters Monday.
Beijing clearly senses an opportunity to use the meeting to pitch deeper trade ties with regional countries spooked by the Trump tariffs. China wants to work with them to “defend free trade and the multilateral trading system,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Tuesday.
“I am quite sure that Trump tariffs will be pushing these countries closer to China,” the former Japanese official said. “In a sense, the tariffs are the greatest geopolitical gift to China. The tariffs would erode decadeslong efforts to pull these countries closer to the West.”
The Japanese government, for its part, took particular umbrage at the suggestion from one White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, that the administration “hasn’t received meaningful engagement from” Japan and the other countries receiving letters Monday.
Japanese Trade Minister Ryosei Akazawa “has been visiting Washington D.C. almost weekly,” said the former official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the country’s reaction to the letter. “If it’s just saying that we’re not saying ‘yes’ to the U.S. demand, that’s one thing, but that is not lack of engagement. We have been fully engaged.”
Not every Asian official expressed the same level of outrage. Some greeted the latest set of threats from Washington with a shrug, as yet more Trumpian political theater. Others saw it as a three-week extension.
”It was just posturing, nothing concrete. Negotiations are ongoing,” said a Washington-based diplomat for one of the countries that received a letter Monday. “The U.S. is pressuring us to agree to its terms.”
And they roundly dismissed the notion that their governments have not engaged actively enough in the talks with the administration. South Korea and Japan have been having regular meetings with top Trump negotiators, including U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ever since Trump first made his “reciprocal” tariff threat against their countries in April. But the negotiations have stalled over Trump’s demands that any deal include sharp increases in defense spending and opening their markets to U.S. automobile imports. Other smaller countries like Malaysia and Thailand have been actively seeking to deepen negotiations and offering to buy more U.S. goods as a sign of goodwill.
“We should not be lamenting Trump’s erratic behavior — it’s time for us to strengthen ourselves,” said former Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya. “So maybe we forget about the external market, especially the U.S., for the time being and regroup.”
Trump, however, isn’t backing down from the rhetoric, despite the blowback it’s drawn. The president said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that the United States wants to have relationships with countries, “but in every case, they treated us far worse than I’m treating them.”
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