President Donald Trump travels to Asia next week, a trip shadowed by midterm election losses that have handed Congress to the Democrats, complicating his domestic agenda and shaping his diplomatic maneuvers.
The itinerary, which begins with the ASEAN summit in Manila and culminates in the APEC gathering in Shenzhen, is important.
In Manila, Trump will join leaders from Australia, India, and Japan for the first time in his second term, and meet with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. His sit-down in Shenzhen with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be their third meeting this year, with trade and semiconductor policy at the forefront. Trump carries a domestic political burden he did not have on previous trips.
But there is a catch. Trump’s weakened position at home is fueling conflicting predictions about how he will project power abroad. Kurt Campbell, chairman and co-founder of the geopolitical advisory firm The Asia Group and a former deputy secretary of state, described a “massive overhang from domestic politics” that will influence every move Trump makes on the road.
“It is often the case when a president ventures to a major trip in Asia, a long domestic shadow casts its darkness over the trip,” Campbell said.
Others see a different reflex. A president weaker at home is often keener to look strong abroad.
“The reality is that Trump is weaker at home politically, so I think he’s going to feel very motivated to project power and confidence,” said Mike Kuiken, vice chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The pageantry of state visits, he added, suits Trump even if the substance is thin.
U.S.-China Talks Focus on Semiconductor Restrictions
The substance of the U.S.-China talks, analysts say, points toward holding the line rather than forging new agreements. The two countries recently extended their trade truce until mid-January following Xi’s September visit to the White House. They also opened a new channel for communicating about AI incidents, but remain locked in a tit-for-tat battle over U.S. semiconductor restrictions and Chinese critical mineral controls.
Beijing may be banking on Trump’s perceived political weakness to maintain diplomatic calm. “I think at least the Chinese expect that he will be more desirous of preserving calm on the diplomatic front now that he is politically weakened,” said Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a member of the same commission.
Brands noted the election result “probably makes Trump more interested in getting big, good international headlines to help him restore a sense of momentum around his presidency.”
One potential headline-grabber is a three-way meeting involving Trump, Xi, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has been floated. Trump said on Sunday that the leaders would discuss “a lot of things, including denuclearization.” Putin raised the idea first, with the Kremlin signaling interest in talks on Ukraine.
Brands is skeptical, however. “If the Xi-Putin-Trump meeting happens, it will only happen because the Chinese have received sufficient guarantees that it’ll be utterly devoid of substance,” he said. “They would want to make this as scripted and formulaic as possible.”
Southeast Asian Leaders Seek Relief from Steep Tariffs
Trade will be near the top of every leader’s list in Manila. Tariffs imposed on several Southeast Asian economies are steep, and those nations may feel emboldened to seek relief.
Leaders in the region are also hoping to see Democrats push back on Trump’s barrage of tariffs, which have heavily impacted Asian export-dependent economies. Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries has urged Congress to reassert its authority over U.S. trade policy, though Trump holds veto power over any such legislation.
The matter of chip policy will loom over the Shenzhen talks, inextricably linked to the turmoil at Nvidia. The chipmaker’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, resigned on Thursday after reports of extramarital affairs with a woman U.S. officials allege was working for Beijing and with a subordinate at the company.
Huang had cultivated close ties with Trump and, in December, won relaxed restrictions on sales of the company’s second-tier chips to China, with Washington taking a 25 percent cut of some sales. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Thursday urged Washington to stop “fabricating the ‘Chinese spy’ narratives as a pretext for imposing technology restrictions.”
Kuiken said he would be surprised if the Nvidia matter surfaced in the bilateral meeting, as neither leader gains from raising it. However, Xi may find ways to warn that further tightening of chip controls through proposed legislation would invite retaliation.
Asian Allies Assess a Weakened Washington
Expectations for a regional breakthrough are modest. Yet the region does not read the U.S. midterms as a verdict on Trump’s remaining influence. “I don’t think the region will see him as a lame duck,” he told AFP. “He has two more years. He can do a lot of things.”
For investors, the near-term signal is one of continuity. The trade truce holds through Jan. 10, no overhaul of U.S. tariff policy is expected, and chip export rules remain the main swing factor for semiconductor names.
However, Campbell warned that the deeper read from the election is that Asian governments will begin diversifying their contacts in Washington. “The biggest manifestation is going to be Asian interlocutors seeking out other power sources in Washington,” he said.
The Unanswered Question on the Korean Peninsula
While the world’s focus shifts to Southeast and East Asia, one legacy issue remains conspicuously unresolved: North Korea. A meeting Trump once sought with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears dead, with Pyongyang rejecting repeated overtures.
Trump has personally staked a lot of time over two terms on North Korea, with Victor Cha noting, “There’s nobody else in the US government that makes policy on North Korea except the president, so I think that he’ll be focused on that sort of legacy issue.”
As the president seeks to project strength abroad, the question of what, if anything, he can achieve with Pyongyang remains one of the great open tests of his foreign policy.
“After bad midterms, this is how presidents reset,” Edgard Kagan, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told a news briefing. That is especially true for Trump on his Asian tour, where he is unlikely to be pressed publicly on domestic politics.
