Reference News Network, December 5 report: The Australian East Asia Forum website published an article titled "Asian Companies Are Trying to Avoid the Impact of Trump's Trade Routes" on December 1. The author is Jyotindra Menon, a senior researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The content is translated as follows:
The Asia-Pacific region, especially Southeast Asian countries, has been hit hardest by U.S. President Trump's "reciprocal tariffs" policy. In July 2025, the Global Insight Group conducted a survey of more than 300 business executives and department heads from Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, and also interviewed 50 U.S. importers.
The survey results show the difficulties that the new economic order has caused for businesses. Half of the Asian respondents have already stopped considering the United States as their main market, and over 25% of the respondents have raised product prices, laid off staff, or adjusted production schedules according to markets outside the United States. These measures had already begun before Trump's tariff policies took effect, but such adjustments will continue throughout the remainder of Trump's presidency, and may even extend beyond his term.
U.S. tariff policies have caused turmoil for businesses and trade relationships around the world. However, as the uncertainty of the policy decreases, ongoing business adjustments may bring some hope for Asian exporters and consumers, while also posing challenges for domestic producers competing with imported products, especially in Southeast Asia. In China, 66% of respondents said they are looking for target markets outside the United States; more than 70% of respondents considered ASEAN as a key region.
Although China's exports to the United States have declined significantly, since the "Liberation Day" of the United States, China's exports to other regions, including ASEAN, have increased significantly. Respondents from various countries also emphasized that ASEAN and China are major alternative markets for consumer goods, food, and agricultural products. Although ASEAN is a target of the Trump administration's tariffs and transshipment policies, compared to ASEAN companies, Australian, Chinese, and Indian companies are more likely to seek to reduce their dependence on the U.S. market.
The report indicates similar shifts at the industry level. In the automotive and aerospace industries, more than one-third of respondents said they have already shifted their export targets to markets outside the United States; 24% of respondents said they will adopt similar strategies in the future. In this regard, ASEAN is expected to become a big winner, as more than half of the companies adjusting their production strategies tend to choose ASEAN as a manufacturing base.
This suggests that the restructuring of global manufacturing supply chains continues after the additional tariffs imposed on China during Trump's first term and the policy upgrades under the Biden administration. It may also reflect the view of companies that the new tariffs generated by the U.S.-China agreement will be "added on top" of existing tariffs, and the tariff gap between ASEAN and China may further widen.
As Asian exporters develop strategies to reduce their reliance on the U.S. market, governments around the world are also pushing for policy adjustments to adapt to a more diversified market. After nearly ten years of negotiation deadlock, the EU and Indonesia recently signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, indicating that both sides are willing to overcome previously unsolvable differences in the current difficult situation.
The current environment may be suitable for setting more ambitious cooperation as a long-term goal, such as establishing a comprehensive trade partnership between the EU and ASEAN, or building a large trade cooperation organization based on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
Due to the continuous changes in the world trade pattern, it is necessary to seek such alternative approaches. The U.S. trade policy keeps changing, and its domestic job creation rate is slowing down and accompanied by persistent inflation, which may lead to stagflation, posing considerable spillover risks to the global economy. There are already signs of price increases in goods related to tariffs in the United States. As the inventory stockpiled before the tariffs is gradually exhausted, commodity prices may rise further.
At the same time, enterprises across Asia are facing risks of increasing debt and inflation, as well as challenges brought about by population, technology, and climate change.
Although the future path remains uncertain, the survey found that Asian exporters do not want to wait for the final decision of the United States. They are drawing up bolder strategies, taking advantage of new opportunities, and reducing their dependence on the increasingly unreliable U.S. market. (Translated by Pan Xiaoyan)
Original source: toutiao.com/article/7580298771880297011/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.