What Will Donald Trump’s Asia Policy Look Like? | The Diplomat: “I’ll tell you what I’ve told the diplomats: we’re serious about what we said [and] flexible about how we do things too,” a source close to President-elect Donald Trump told The Diplomat early Wednesday morning in response to inquiries about his Asia policy following his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton just a few hours earlier.
After shrugging off much of what Trump said during the election campaign and writing off his chances of winning, many are now rushing to figure out to what extent his words will translate into actions after the biggest U.S. election upset since Harry Truman beat Thomas E. Dewey back in 1948. His approach to Asia has unsurprisingly attracted a lot of attention, given the fact that the future of U.S. President Barack Obama’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific hangs in the balance (See: “US Asia Policy After Obama: Opportunities and Challenges”).
Asia has certainly been an area of focus for the Trump campaign, though most are probably familiar only with the headline-grabbing statements about U.S. alliances and nuclear weapons rather than how the region factors into Trump’s overall worldview and what that means for his likely Asia policy. With Trump set to take office in January 2017, it is worth taking a closer look at what America’s new president might do in the region.
