00:00I'm proud to announce that the United States commitment is being evidenced to ASEAN is being evidenced by action.
00:06The United States is now going to, as we announced last year and have been following up in the year
00:11since our last gathering,
00:12leverage all available tools in our government to strengthen these relations, and that includes on the topic of foreign assistance.
00:19As part of that effort, we're delivering $2.5 billion in U.S. government strategic investments in Southeast Asia.
00:27China correspondent Min Min Lo is at the meeting. She joins us now for more.
00:32Min Min, it's not just those tariffs on Indian oil, on pharmaceuticals, which could impact India and China that we
00:36were just discussing,
00:37but the stopgap tariffs are also due for replacement.
00:41There could be some more coming, which might affect ASEAN member nations.
00:45How much discussion is there of this tariff threat?
00:50Yes, certainly there is a lot of anxiety around these looming tariffs, right?
00:55You mentioned the pharmaceutical tariffs, and Lisa Tu mentioned earlier India would be most affected,
01:00but a lot of Indian drugs get their ingredients from China, so China would be indirectly affected.
01:06Southeast Asia doesn't export as much of those drugs to the U.S., but Singapore does have a sizable biotech
01:12sector,
01:13although a lot of Singapore's drugs that are exported are patented drugs, so they're not going to be affected to
01:18as large an extent.
01:20But still, it's just the sort of anxiety that people here are feeling, given the changing tariff regime, right?
01:27Because the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those tariffs, and then there was a 10% blanket tariff that
01:32Trump administration put in.
01:33That is set to expire this Friday, and there is huge expectation that potentially Trump is going to come up
01:39with new levies to impose on countries in Southeast Asia.
01:43And this region is going to be severely affected because most of them are small nations, and they are export
01:49-oriented nations.
01:51They are also price takers in the global market, so they will be disproportionately affected by any of these tariff
01:58threats from the U.S.
01:59And I guess you could see Marco Rubio there trying to reassure ASEAN partners that the commitment from the U
02:05.S. is still there.
02:06He's at 100% at the highest levels, and he committed to those $2.5 billion investment pledge in Asia
02:14as well.
02:14The question is, is that enough to reassure the partners here around all the concerns around tariffs and, of course,
02:21the Middle Eastern war that has disrupted shipments through the Middle East as well?
02:27Yeah, part of President Trump's argument here was that not just ASEAN nations, but all the nations that have been
02:32subject to these stopgap tariffs have not been doing enough on forced labor practices.
02:37Have the member nations there gathered had anything to say about that, and how can they react or adapt to
02:43a new tariff regime?
02:47So we haven't heard a lot from the Southeast Asian nations that there's an ongoing meeting with Marco Rubio and
02:53the ASEAN countries, and, of course, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be meeting with the ASEAN countries as well.
02:58We haven't gotten any definitive statement from the ASEAN countries around this, but certainly they will have to adapt, right?
03:05And, yes, when it comes to the Middle Eastern war, already the impact of inflation, the impact of higher fuel
03:12prices is being felt here.
03:14There were protests that broke out earlier this year, back in March, prompting President Marcos to call for a national
03:20energy emergency.
03:21You look at markets right now, the peso is tanking, the Japanese yen also, we are on intervention watch, and
03:27all of these emerging market currencies are being pressured because of higher oil prices.
03:32So there's a lot of impact being felt day to day by ordinary citizens at the pumps, at the grocery
03:38stores.
03:38So this is something that is key for all of these ASEAN nations to come together to really unite their
03:44purchasing power in order to negotiate for a better deal with the U.S.
03:50All right, that's our China correspondent, Min Min Lo, there at the ASEAN Foreign Minister's meeting in Manila.
03:56Let's get a bit more on the tariff threat and the ASEAN geopolitical outlook with Huang Leitu, Deputy Asia-Pacific
04:03Director at the International Crisis Group.
04:05She's an international relations expert, and her research focuses on Southeast Asian security, ASEAN regionalism and great power competition.
04:14Huang, thanks so much for joining us today.
04:15And there's plenty of great power competition going on at the moment.
04:19I'm just wondering, with these potentially more tariffs coming, how would you characterize the trading environment at the moment between
04:26ASEAN and the U.S.?
04:28And what can ASEAN member nations do to mitigate against this?
04:34Well, first of all, it's good to see Secretary of State of Michael Rubio is in the region for the
04:41ASEAN Foreign Minister's last meetings, which is a way of reassuring.
04:46And his statement about ASEAN being at the center focus of the U.S. foreign policy, be they genuine or
04:55not, is music to the regional ears.
04:58Of course, the region is very worried about the tariffs, they're substantial, and perhaps we are not seeing the end
05:08of them as new tariffs roll in.
05:11At the same time, turbulence is caused by the Middle East crisis and disruptions to the oil, gas, and also
05:21fertilizers supply.
05:22Very critical for this region, so there are pressures from many fronts, tariffs being one, but also disruptions in the
05:31critical supply chains, all cause uncertainties, anxiety, and already resulting in higher costs of prices, higher costs of living, but
05:42also business operations, which in this region, most of the time, operate on very thin margin, thin profit margin.
05:50So all of that will actually affect quite a lot the well-being and economic prospects of the region.
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