Trump’s Abrupt Turn to Russia—and Whether a U.S.-Russia Team Could Gain Any Sway in South and Southeast Asia

In recent days, President Trump and his administration have released a radical new geopolitical strategy, one in which the White House seems to be turning against traditional European allies and building closer ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It appears that part of this interest in building closer links to Russia, including by disdaining Ukraine, blaming the war on Ukraine (Russia invaded Ukraine), and Trump himself lavishly praising Putin, is the idea that the United States can use Russia alongside Washington as a tool together against China. In some ways, this would vaguely resemble a reverse Kissinger—Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon had courted China, which was already splitting with the Soviet Union, to build a U.S.-China front against Moscow. Here, the White House and its China super hawks seem to believe that they can work with Russia to isolate China from the world and damage its increasing global presence.

One can debate whether this radical shift, besides the wisdom of disdaining longtime U.S. allies and throwing a high amount of uncertainty into global politics, would work against China, or if it makes any sense at all in promoting U.S. interests and U.S. leadership. China and Russia already have been building very close strategic and economic links, and the two are allied in trying to reduce the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency and prime currency of trade, promote alternative institutions to the post-WWII order, and back up a growing network of linked authoritarian states around the world, from Venezuela to Vietnam.

In many respects, given China’s extreme closeness with Russia and the fact that China has insulated itself well against U.S. tariffs, trade pressure, and other types of pressure, China is better positioned to ally with Russia in a more formal way against the United States.

However, were the Trump administration’s plan to make some inroads, Russia’s historical and current-day relations with South and Southeast Asian states might help. If U.S. cooperation with Russia blunts some of China’s global gains and possibly challenges China more intensely in its home region, since Washington would not have to worry about spending money protecting itself against Moscow, then theoretically the United States would have more money to support partners in Asia opposed to China.

Russia also has historic close ties with many South and Southeast Asian states, some of which continue to this day—and might be a help if the Trump administration is trying to use Russia and the United States together to isolate China. Perhaps the added Russia links could bolster stronger resistance to China in parts of South and Southeast Asia, where some countries fear China’s security aggressiveness even as they build massive trade links with Beijing.

For instance, the Soviet Union was a major supporter of North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and the Vietnamese army to this day is mostly reliant on Russian platforms and Russian equipment. The Vietnamese leadership, too, still has close diplomatic relations with Russia and did not condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Perhaps the addition of Russia to U.S. pressure on Vietnam might push the Vietnamese leadership to more clearly move away from China.

And, Russia’s ties to India have lasted some seventy-five years, including deep bilateral economic ties that are increasing rapidly in recent years. India continued to buy Russian oil despite sanctions and has mapped out a plan with Russia to increase bilateral trade by tens of billions of dollars in the next few years.  With India already at odds with China on so many issues, maybe the addition of Russia to the growing U.S.-India partnership would help turn India more clearly against Beijing. (There are other examples, too, of South and Southeast Asian states with longstanding diplomatic, military, and economic links to Russia.)

But these are all questions that are very much open for debate. Even if Russia provided some minor help with a few countries in South and Southeast Asia, it likely would not match the enormous influence China already wields in these regions. China is the dominant trading partner with Southeast Asia, and also was already increasingly preferred, in surveys, as an external actor to the United States. China is at the heart of regional economic integration and, increasingly, the overwhelming provider of cutting-edge goods like electric vehicles. The Trump administration’s destruction of many U.S. soft power tools, from aid to broadcasting, is only going to further alienate much of Southeast and South Asia and allow China to bolster its regional public diplomacy.