Trade courtships at ASEAN and the Geopolitics of Critical Minerals

There is no question, Trump has turned world trade upside down. While he is not getting everything he wants, no one in the world is either willing or able to call his bluffs or stop him in his tracks.

- BY RAJAN PHILIPS

Anwar to Trump: “I was in prison, and you almost got there!”

The recent ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur had Trump written all over it even if it meant far less than what was displayed. The summit and its dynamic also showed world leaders jostling around like sales people at an industrial exhibition. Except, there were no booths or interesting products on display. Only Trump's tariffs and the pleadings of others.

“Trump gives 'toothless' Asian summit its moment in the sun,” BBC online headlined its news story on the ASEAN summit. It would equally be correct to say, “ASEAN gives Trump the adulation he craves for.” The Malaysian media understandably took it differently. “Malaysia didn't just host ASEAN - it steadied a shifting world,” read the headline for one commentary.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim won fulsome praise for his shepherding of the main ASEAN summit and other summits within summits. In one of the meetings, Anwar even managed a self-deprecating crack but aimed at Trump: “We share a lot in common, one of which is that I was in prison, and you almost got there.”

Apparently, everyone laughed, including Trump, who did not get 'nasty' with his Malaysian host the way he usually does with his White House guests. If there was a snub at the summit, or rather to Trump, it came by way of two prominent no-shows - by India's Narendra Modi and China's Xi Jinping. Xi later met with Trump at another summit in Seoul, while Modi limited himself to a virtual appearance from Delhi and left the rest to his delegates just as the Chinese did in KL. The backdrop to all the small politics at the summits was Trump's tariffs and their predictable unpredictability.