Donald J. Trump won.  For the first time in 132 years, Trump has become the president who got voted out once but returned to power.  The election was overwhelmingly focused on the state of the U.S. economy and its border security, but the impact of the result of this election reaches far beyond U.S. borders.  The U.S. allies around the world need to figure out how they will respond to Donald Trump’s  “America First” approach to foreign and security policy again. 

The Indo-Pacific region is no exception.  For the last four years, the Biden administration carefully knit together a coalition of U.S. allies across the globe.  In particular, through efforts such as AUKUS and the Quad, the Biden administration made strides to build cross-region partnerships among U.S. allies.  In addition, Biden’s concerted efforts to invest in bolstering many mini-laterals in the Indo-Pacific region—including U.S.-Japan-Australia, U.S.-Japan-ROK, U.S.-Japan-India, and most recently U.S.-Japan-the Philippines—resulted in institutionalizing these relationships to the level of quasi-alliance. Today, the day after the U.S. election, there is no doubt that allies in the Indo-Pacific including Japan have begun to wonder whether these partnerships will be resilient enough to withstand another four years of an “America First” approach of the Trump administration 2.0. 

One might argue that the Indo-Pacific might fare better than Europe over a second Trump term.  This is because a hardened approach against China may be one of the few policy areas that one can expect continuity from Biden to Trump.  Indeed, Trump has already talked about the prospect of slapping 60% tariff against imports from China.  He, similar to Biden and Harris, argued that the U.S. will win the 21st-century competition vis-à-vis China in advanced technologies. 

Still, the allies in the Indo-Pacific should be careful what they wish for.  Japan, for example, can certainly expect pressure from the U.S. to continue to, at minimum, stay on its current path of bolstering its own defense capability and increasing defense spending.  Its anticipated negotiation over the renewal of its Host Nation Support will likely be much more challenging with the Trump administration, which is expected to push Tokyo to share more financial burden of stationing U.S. troops in Japan.  Under Trump, Tokyo will also likely face greater pressure to bring more job-creating investments in the United States and make its supply chain more secure from China’s influence.  This will make it extremely difficult for Tokyo to tread a delicate balance between playing a proactive role as a staunch ally of the U.S. and refraining from completely alienating China.  And unlike in 2016, Japan faces the Trump administration 2.0 without a leader like Shinzo Abe – a strong and charismatic leader who can build a personal rapport with Trump. 

Other countries, with the possible exception of India—Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also known for his success to develop a personal relationship with Trump—all share a similar prospect as Tokyo.  U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific will need to intensify their collective efforts to take ownership of the partnerships built during the four years of Biden so that these existing relationships may be able to absorb the shock of another four years of “America First”.