Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says that he has written to U.S. President Donald Trump to request the convening of a special meeting between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discuss Washington’s sweeping new tariff regime.
In his remarks at the opening of the 46th AASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, the Malaysian leader said that he had “taken the liberty of writing to President Donald Trump to seek his understanding and support in organising a U.S.-ASEAN meeting,” Free Malaysia Today reported.
“This speaks not only to our aspirations but also to our responsibilities,” he said, adding that the future of the Southeast Asian bloc rests on the “twin pillars of equitable, sustainable growth and lasting resilience.”
Nikkei Asia reported that ASEAN had tentatively scheduled the meeting for October, with the location yet to be determined. However, it added that Anwar’s letter, which was sent to Trump yesterday, proposed convening the summit as soon as possible.
Southeast Asian governments are still coming to grips with the implications of the “liberation day” tariffs announced by Trump on April 2, which saw the region hit with tariffs ranging as high as 49 percent (Cambodia), 48 percent (Laos), 46 percent (Vietnam), 36 percent (Thailand), and 32 percent (Indonesia). These tariffs are due to come into effect in July, and a number of Southeast Asian governments have since entered talks with Washington in a bid to reduce these import duties.
In response, Malaysia, the current ASEAN chair, has pledged to lead a regional response to the U.S. tariffs. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Anwar said that his government “will lead efforts to present a united regional front, maintain open and resilient supply chains, and ensure ASEAN’s collective voice is heard clearly and firmly on the international stage.”
At yesterday’s summit, ASEAN leaders also signed the Kuala Lumpur Declaration, which sets the bloc’s strategic direction for the next two decades. The declaration highlighted the region’s “deep concern” over Washington’s unilateral tariffs, which pose “complex and multidimensional challenges” to ASEAN’s export-dependent economies.
“A transition in the geopolitical order is underway, and the global trading system is under further strain with the recent imposition of U.S. unilateral tariffs,” Anwar said in his speech. “Protectionism is resurging as we bear witness to multilateralism breaking apart at the seams.”
As ASEAN chair, Malaysia has called for the bloc to deepen its economic integration, expand intra-regional trade, which currently makes up just over a fifth of total ASEAN trade, and reduce its reliance on any single external trade partner. While ASEAN member states have been conducting their own bilateral discussions with Washington, Anwar said there was a unanimous agreement among the bloc’s leaders that it should also lead a regional response.
“When we encountered the tariff issue, we agreed to proceed with bilateral meetings while maintaining ASEAN consensus,” he said. Exactly what this means, and what demands the bloc would table at its planned special summit with the U.S., remains unclear, given the large differences in each member state’s economy and trade relations with the U.S.
In remarks ahead of the summit, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that ASEAN leaders would compare their nations’ responses to the tariffs, adding that the bloc “must find a way to find consensus amongst the disparate situations that the different member states are operating under.”
Also yesterday, Anwar hailed the “significant” progress in ASEAN’s efforts to resolve the conflict and accompanying humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. As Reuters reported, the summit was expected to involve discussions of “ways to jumpstart ASEAN’s faltering Myanmar peace process and build on recent efforts by Anwar, the bloc’s current chair, to bring rival groups to the table.”
ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus peace plan, formulated at a special summit in April 2021, has done little to halt the fighting, given the military junta’s unwillingness to implement its most important points. But since taking over the ASEAN chairmanship, Anwar claims to have made a renewed push for dialogue by engaging positively with “all parties” to the conflict. Last month, he held separate talks with junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and the opposition National Unity Government, adding last week that the time was right for negotiations.
On the weekend, Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said that ASEAN’s foreign ministers had agreed to discuss creating a permanent ASEAN envoy for Myanmar, possibly for a term of three years, rather than changing envoys each year. Along with the new ASEAN troika mechanism that brings together the current, last, and next ASEAN chairs, this would help to ensure a greater degree of continuity in ASEAN’s efforts to resolve the crisis. Mohamad added that he would visit Myanmar next month to move forward potential peace talks.
“We have been able to move the needle forward in our efforts for the eventual resolution of the Myanmar crisis,” Anwar said in his opening address at the summit. “I wish to stress that throughout this process, quiet engagement has mattered. The steps may be small and the bridge may be fragile but as they say, in matters of peace, even a fragile bridge is better than a widening gulf.”
ASEAN is also complementing its Five-Point Consensus with the establishment of an Informal Advisory Group on Myanmar, an unofficial team of regional grandees led by former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Last week, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa told Reuters that it would advocate for greater international engagement with Myanmar’s military junta at the ASEAN Summit, in a bid to end the civil war.
Finally, the summit featured discussion of its perennial agenda item: the disputes in the South China Sea, in particular, the bloc’s sluggish negotiations with China on a Code of Conduct for the disputed waterway. The past two years have seen a series of increasingly dangerous confrontations between China and Southeast Asian claimant states that challenge its expansive claims to the South China Sea. The most serious clashes have occurred with the Philippines, which has seen the China Coast Guard encroaching into Manila’s exclusive economic zone with increasing frequency and intensity.
Addressing yesterday’s summit, Marcos called for urgency in completing a legally binding Code of Conduct in order to “safeguard maritime rights, promote stability, and prevent miscalculations,” Reuters reported.