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U.S. President Trump has embarked on a week-long visit to three Asian countries and attended the ASEAN Summit. Economic and trade issues will become the highlight.

However, the US "Politico News Network" pointed out quite pessimistically on October 25 that the three verbal trade agreements reached by the Trump administration with Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines in July this year have not yet made substantial progress. There is a high probability that relevant breakthroughs will not be announced this time. Negotiations on these agreements have stalled due to the failure to resolve core disputes such as tariff exemption details, China-related transshipment issues, and rules of origin. The reluctance of Southeast Asian countries to choose sides between China and the United States has further exacerbated the difficulty of negotiations.

"Trump's preliminary trade agreement in Southeast Asia has failed," this article wrote under this title. Trump went to Southeast Asia this time, trying to strengthen economic ties with the region in the context of high-risk trade conflicts with China. However, the three trade agreements he signed with the three largest economies in the region a few months ago have made no progress so far.

The White House was eager to achieve more trade results before its own tariff increase deadline. However, apart from social media publicity, the White House did not provide any details of the agreement on how to reduce U.S. tariffs. The three governments also publicly denied some of Trump's claims. Apart from a brief note on Indonesia, the Trump administration has not released any progress for months.

According to three people familiar with the talks, Trump is not expected to announce any new progress in the talks in Kuala Lumpur, but is preparing to announce new preliminary deals with Cambodia and Malaysia.

During the 47th ASEAN Summit, Trump met with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar

Southeast Asian countries don't want to choose sides

According to a statement issued by the White House on 26th, the United States and Thailand have agreed on a trade agreement framework aimed at expanding market access, strengthening supply chains and deepening economic cooperation.Under this framework, Thailand will abolish tariffs on 99% of U.S. goods, while the United States will maintain a "peer-to-peer" tariff of 19% and impose zero tariffs on some Thai products.

Even so, the future of the agreement remains unknown.

The article pointed out that the United States had been unable to finalize details with Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, highlighting the fragility of a series of "handshake agreements" by the Trump administration. After all, these agreements did not touch on thorny controversial issues, especially those involving China. For example, the United States claims that China transfers goods through Southeast Asian countries to circumvent US tariffs. If this issue is not resolved, the United States will be in a weak position in its contacts with China.

According to Trump, in the trade agreement reached with Vietnam, the U.S. will impose a 40% tariff on any shipped goods.The U.S. also hopes to implement a new "origin rule" that tries to restrict parts manufactured in China to be shipped to other countries to assemble to evade tariffs.

In response to the fact that the trade agreement reached between the United States and Vietnam will impose a 40% tariff on transshipment goods, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning previously stated that China has always advocated that all parties resolve economic and trade differences through equal dialogue and consultation, and relevant negotiations and agreements should not target or harm third parties. interests.

¡°These are very complex issues,¡± said Daniel Critenblink, who served as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam during Trump¡¯s first administration, ¡°and I¡¯m not surprised that it took so long to solve them.¡±

¡°You can quickly agree on the maximum tariff rate in principle, but then make a practical implementation plan ... it¡¯s a much more complex task.¡±

He added,"When the president talks about 'transshipment,' he actually pays more attention to foreign elements, especially China elements. This is a very difficult issue to monitor and measure."

Barbara Weissel, a former U.S. trade negotiator and now a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it's unclear how strict the U.S. intends to be in negotiating or unilaterally implementing new "rules of origin" or how broad its definition of "transshipment" will be.

Meanwhile, the U.S. also called for the addition of an ¡°economic security¡± clause to the agreement, restricting ASEAN countries from exporting certain high-tech products to China, and restricting Chinese investment in specific areas.

Weissell said: ¡°ASEAN countries are concerned that if these measures are implemented, it will cause a strong reaction from China.¡±

Last year, ASEAN's bilateral trade with the United States amounted to $475 billion, while trade with China reached $984 billion, and China remains ASEAN's largest trading partner as a whole, highlighting the difficulty of the United States forcing countries to stand on the sidelines.

¡°Southeast Asian countries have repeatedly stated that they don¡¯t want to choose between the United States and China,¡± Weissell said, but they also understand that once these mutual trade agreements are signed, they may be forced to choose a side in the U.S.-China trade war and directly engage in the trade war between the two great powers.¡±

Trump arrives in Malaysia, welcomed warmly

Professor Zhao Weiwei, director of the Center for Research on China-Country Relations at Fujian University, said to the Observer Network, ¡°ASEAN¡¯s strategy is to make China, the United States, Japan, Russia, India and other great nations become their dialogue partners and maintain special positions through mutual constraints of the great powers, in which case it is inevitable to consider the interests and ideas of the great powers and to balance between the great powers. Especially when the United States introduces ¡°reciprocal tariffs¡± and promotes unilateralism, it is inevitable to be influenced by the United States. But it is not possible for ASEAN to act entirely in accordance with the intentions of the United States, and China is stronger than ever, and will not tolerate ASEAN. ASEAN itself understands that if it becomes

In the past few months, the White House has hinted that any country that reached an agreement before the Trump-set tariff deadline would enjoy a ¡°front-end advantage,¡± but even if the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam were the first to sign the framework agreement in the summer, Trump still imposed a unified tariff of 19% to 20% on almost all of Southeast Asia in August, shockingly.

The agreement has just been announced on Trump¡¯s social platform, and Vietnam has discovered that the tariffs and shipping charges imposed by the United States are much higher than expected, so the Vietnamese government has never officially accepted the agreement. The two sides are still staying in the negotiation phase on how to determine the level of the basic tariffs, and have not yet entered the complex ¡°transfer¡± issue.

Zhao Huang pointed out that now China is an extremely important part of the Vietnamese supply chain, and overall, China is more important to Vietnam than the United States, and Vietnam cannot risk damaged relations with China to meet the United States.

"Fundamentally shaken confidence"

Another major obstacle to negotiations between the United States and ASEAN countries is that the U.S. government is increasingly conducting ¡°national security¡± investigations of foreign goods under Article 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which may lead to new tariffs after the agreement is signed.

Weissell said: ¡°It would be politically embarrassing for these countries if they just accepted a bilateral agreement and were badly hurt by a new 232 inquiry a few months later.¡±

The article concluded that the combination of obstacles, coupled with the huge number of negotiations being pushed by the United States at the same time, means that Trump is unlikely to reach any formal agreement during this trip, let alone this year.

As an industry official asked for anonymity said, ¡°Unfortunately, the reality shows that a final reciprocal tariff agreement with most ASEAN countries is hardly possible by 2025.¡±

In fact, the uncertainty and repeated confidence deficit of the US government has fundamentally shaken the confidence of ASEAN countries in the United States.

On the occasion of the opening of the ASEAN summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar urged ASEAN countries to reach new trade agreements with the Gulf region, Latin America, China, Africa and the wider Asia-Pacific region to ensure that the economies of member countries can smoothly weather the changes of the times.

"Rising protectionism and changing supply chains remind us that resilience comes from adaptability. ASEAN cannot stand still. We must have the courage to forge new partnerships and the vision to deepen existing cooperation."

¡°The future of ASEAN is not determined by the environment, it depends on our choices and the choices we make right now,¡± Anvar said.

On October 26, 2025, during the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Malaysian Prime Minister Anvar, Thai Prime Minister Anutin, Cambodian Prime Minister Honnamane and U.S. President Trump brought up documents during the signing of the Cambodian ceasefire agreement.

The Hong Kong South China Morning Post's Asia This Week earlier pointed out in an analysis article that across the ASEAN region, small and medium-sized enterprises are learning to adapt to the so-called "post-American trade era".

In Vietnam, for example, exporters are taking a ¡°risk-free¡± strategy to reduce their reliance on volatile markets such as the United States.

In these markets, tariff changes and exchange rate fluctuations can evaporate profits overnight; while Trump's repeated unconstant tariff policies have completely lost the predictability and stability of the U.S. market, forcing companies to shift their focus.

Jaydeep Singh, an analyst at the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies, bluntly said that almost no one thinks that the direction of U.S. trade policy will be reversed in the short term, and these tariff measures are "unlikely to be cancelled immediately after the end of the Trump administration's term".

He told Hong Kong media,"Analysts and policymakers around the world are viewing Trump's trade policies as part of an overall shift in U.S. trade behavior and viewing them as a norm."

The Observer Network.