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Scholars warned that ASEAN’s ability to strengthen its industrial base and advance supply-chain decarbonization will be key to its economic resilience in the coming years. (Screenshot of livestream)
ASEAN once enjoyed spillover gains from the U.S.–China trade war during Trump’s first term. In the Trump 2.0 era, however, such third-party dividends are far more elusive, coinciding with the region’s broader push to green its supply chains.
At the 2025 International Conference on “ASEAN in the Second Trump Administration: Strategic Challenges and Policy Opportunities” held on Dec. 11, scholars warned that ASEAN’s ability to reinforce its industrial base and accelerate supply-chain decarbonization will be central to its economic resilience over the next three years.
Strategic autonomy under renewed U.S. pressure
While Trump’s first term inadvertently boosted the region through the “China-plus-one” shift, his second term is expected to bring tighter scrutiny and more stringent compliance demands, particularly in sectors with complex value chains. Nguyen Hung Son, President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, noted that Washington now views even “China-plus-one” as a threat, because the region’s trade structure remains heavily reliant on China.
