Key Point: Trump’s Asia trip shows allies fear abandonment more than humiliation—accepting tariffs, defense hikes, and U.S. investments to keep Washington onside.
-Trump’s latest swing through Asia produced few strategic breakthroughs with China but revealed a bigger story: allied dependence on U.S. protection.
Donald Trump In a Meeting. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-Pressing for 5% of GDP on defense, tariff restraint, and large U.S. investments, Trump leveraged allies’ abandonment fears—prompting Japan and South Korea to accept lopsided deals and lavish symbolism.
-Unlike past presidents, Trump openly extracts concessions from democracies, shattering liberal-order norms while highlighting allies’ reluctance to rearm or chart independent policies.
-The result is transactional alliance management that “works” on paper but corrodes trust—and underscores how much America’s partners will endure to keep Washington’s security umbrella overhead.
America’s Allies Will Humilate Themselves to Keep Washington Onside
US President Donald Trump has completed his tour of East Asia. He attended a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization.
Much of the focus was on Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but their final agreement primarily involved restoring traditional trade ties. There was no apparent progress on the serious strategic issues driving the US and China apart—Taiwan, the Ukraine war, North Korea’s nuclear missileization, and so on.
Instead, the biggest national security story of the trip was the desperation of US allies to placate Trump. Trump has long been wary of US allies. He has claimed for years that they “rip off” America—by not spending enough on their own defense, or by running a trade surplus with the US.
In his second term, Trump has acted on these impulses. He has demanded that America’s European allies allocate an unprecedented 5% of their GDP to defense. Trump has also insisted that US allies refrain from responding with their own tariffs against his tariffs and that they invest substantial sums of money in the US economy.
There has been much skepticism that Trump could simply demand hundreds of billions of dollars in allied investments in the US and get away with it. And yet it appears to have happened on this Asia trip. Both Japan and South Korea have accepted one-sided terms in deals struck with Trump. This is a victory of sorts for him, but more obviously, it is powerful evidence of how deeply dependent American allies are on the US.
Why Do US Allies Put Up with Trump?
Trump’s dislike for US allies is well-known by this point. Trump does not feel a special commitment to other liberal democracies. Contrary to all other postwar US presidents, Trump does not seem to care about the cohesion of the liberal international order or the liberal community of states.
He is transactional and nationalist in his approach to foreign affairs, as evidenced by his evident admiration for dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin or North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
One would expect US allies to start drifting away or hedging the US in response. Indeed, this expectation had already been present during Trump’s first term. But it did not happen. Despite all the complaints about Trump’s brusque style back then, no US ally made a serious effort to de-link. Most chose, instead, to flatter Trump to retain countries’ alignment with the US. And this appears to be happening yet again in Trump’s second term.
Yet, Trump is even worse toward US allies than he was during his first term. He has threatened to annex a US ally (Canada) and part of another US ally (Greenland and Denmark). He has threatened to bomb Mexico and retake the Panama Canal.
He seems to want Russia to win the Russo-Ukrainian War. Yet, despite all this, US allies are still clinging to the US system and continue to flatter Trump. South Korea even gave Trump a gold crown.
This is remarkable groveling.
Humility and Security
Trump’s strongest political sense has always been for the weaknesses of his opponents. In 2015, he famously described Jeb Bush’s competing presidential campaign as ‘low energy.’ In US alliance management, Trump has quickly realized that most US allies are terrified of American abandonment. That, in turn, gives Trump enormous leverage to blackmail and bully these countries. They prefer to be humiliated by Trump, and flatter him with obsequious displays and huge pay-offs, than risk an independent foreign policy.
Previous US presidents did not exploit allied vulnerability as much. They accepted the constraints of the liberal international order when dealing with other liberal democracies. That is, they did not openly bully and blackmail US allies, as Trump is doing now, because they believed inter-democratic extortion to be normatively inappropriate.
For example, it was ok to threaten and pressure dictatorial North Korea, but not democratic South Korea.
But transactional Trump does not share that belief. He is entirely comfortable shaking down long-time US friends with overt threats to US market access (high tariffs) or implicit threats to alliance commitments.
This is deeply unpopular with the US national security community, which fears that Trump is destroying the trust the US has long enjoyed from other liberal democracies. But Trump just does not care.
However, Trump has also highlighted just how weak and fearful US allies are, how much they have become accustomed to the US security blanket, and how unwilling they are to make genuine adjustments—such as higher defense spending or cuts to welfare spending—to pursue an independent foreign policy.
They would rather be publicly humiliated. This is remarkable … and embarrassing.
Author: Dr. Robert Kelly, Pusan National University
Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University in South Korea. His research interests focus on Security in Northeast Asia, U.S. foreign policy, and international financial institutions. He has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, the European Journal of International Relations, and the Economist, and he has spoken on television news services including BBC and CCTV. His personal website/blog is here; his Twitter page is here.
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Jim
October 31, 2025 at 6:35 pm
Our Asian-Pacific allies fear abandonment, but they also, to a nation, don’t want to go to war because the United States tells them they must do so.
The “direct investment” sums promised down the road are symbolic. What liberal democracy can order domestic companies to invest in a foreign country?
These countries want reinvestment in their own countries from successful domestic businesses, not being required to attempt the ordering, via state power, of investment in foreign nations.
What Trump does is cause the “grumbling” effect: leaders and various stakeholders in these countries complain and sit in sullen resentment & quiet pique.
But they don’t sit still: China, Japan, and South Korea have quietly extended an economic cooperation agreement at the same time Trump was visiting East Asia.
I’d go so far as to suggest Trump comes off as the ugly American… per tales of entitled American tourists heard the world over for decades.
Our leaders have had the good sense not to copy poor American tourist habits… until Trump, that is.
This is a misguided direction for ourselves and our Asia-Pacific friends & allies to go in.
But does Trump have any other gear or negotiating approach or style?
It’s left us on a “probationary” status with China regarding rare earths, better than nothing, but contrary to Trump’s boastfulness, China held the upper hand in their negotiations with the U. S., and displayed limited amounts of patience with Trump’s various actions they consider contrary to prior understandings reach earlier this year to “freeze” the incipient tariff war.
And told Trump to his face about their displeasure with what they consider his administration’s deceit and manipulation (everybody is wise to Trump’s tactics & style and casual acquaintance with the facts as understood by his opponents and friends alike).
Trump even invited himself to China next Spring. China never extended an invitation to Trump… he just claimed it…
… still without word from China if they will ever extend an official state visit to Trump…
… but you know Trump wants the pomp & circumstance of a state visit… bad.
I guess it depends on how Trump’s probation goes over the course of the next six months.
Trump’s performance in East Asia demonstrated the limits of his style of diplomacy.
Jim M
November 1, 2025 at 1:31 pm
This article missed the blindingly obvious. Our allies tolerate Trump’s truculent manner because Trump’s demands make military conscription and a serious approach to national defense an easier sell domestically. When citizens in Korea, Japan, et al complain about increased defense spending, politicians can point to Trump and say “the US made us do it”. This is a win/win, the US gets stronger allies and the politicians get a bogeyman to blame for spending that would cost them far more politically if the impetus for same was home grown.
Give Trump credit for seeing this and exploiting it. Which of course this author will never do because he suffers from a serious case of TDS.