The ASEAN Summit in Malaysia headed to the finish as a crucible for the economic anxieties and institutional limitations facing the regional bloc.
Trade deals led by U.S. President Donald Trump secured immediate bilateral concessions, but failed to alleviate regional uncertainty over future tariffs and market access. Ahead of the summit's close on Tuesday, foreign and economic ministers called for "greater synergy across the political and economic pillars to respond to the growing economic-security nexus" in a world unsettled by steep U.S. tariffs.
In response to global trade uncertainties, ministers reaffirmed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' commitment to a rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core.
They resolved to strengthen internal economic integration by advancing an upgraded ASEAN trade-in-goods agreement and leveraging a regional comprehensive economic partnership. The ministers also welcomed a new geoeconomic task force's call for a three-pronged approach to address "the immediate fallout from uncertainties in international trade policies."
The summit will conclude with Malaysia formally handing over the ASEAN chairmanship to the Philippines for the 2026 term. The bloc marked a major institutional milestone with the formal admission of Timor-Leste as the 11th full member nation.
Timor-Leste's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão hailed his nation's accession, which completes the geographic footprint of Southeast Asia within ASEAN, as "a historic milestone in our regional journey."
Trump’s presence facilitated targeted bilateral actions, including new deals with Malaysia and Cambodia, alongside framework agreements with Thailand and Vietnam. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed a new ASEAN-U.S. "vision statement" as a show of U.S. commitment in the region.
In exchange for tariff relief on certain exports, the deals demanded steep commitments, notably Malaysia’s pledge of a $70 billion capital investment in the U.S. The agreements, however, provided no firm guarantees against Trump’s threatened high tariffs on vital industrial sectors, leaving the region's highly integrated supply chains — particularly for semiconductors and transshipment cargo —vulnerable to regulatory changes.
Precursor to a U.S.-China leaders' meeting
The U.S. used the summit to open a new front in resource geopolitics, signing parallel agreements with Malaysia and Thailand for cooperation on critical minerals. The agreements commit both Southeast Asian nations to prioritizing U.S. investment in their domestic processing industries and working to deter the sale of strategic assets on national security grounds.
Furthermore, both agreements explicitly commit the nations to coordinating efforts to protect their domestic critical minerals and rare earths markets from "non-market policies" by considering market intervention tools such as price floors.
On the sidelines of the summit, which began on Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart, He Lifeng, reached a "framework deal" on tariffs and rare earths. The deal is considered a precursor to the anticipated meeting between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping in South Korea later this week.
Rubio acknowledged some of the anxieties surrounding that meeting and offered assurances the U.S. is not contemplating using Taiwan as a bargaining chip. "What people are worried about is we’re going to get some trade deal where we’re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan," he told a press briefing en route to Doha, Qatar. "No one is contemplating that."
The concentration of U.S. influence simultaneously illuminated the structural limits of ASEAN’s own diplomatic capacity. The deadlock over Myanmar was again evident, with leaders unable to move beyond urging the military junta to end the violence. Rubio affirmed the U.S. is "formulating" its policy on Myanmar but does not want to act unilaterally, preferring to work "in conjunction with regional partners" on the matter.
A major success of the summit, the signing of the Kuala Lumpur Accord to end the deadly border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, was ultimately secured by U.S. economic pressure, even though Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim facilitated the initial ceasefire.
ASEAN provides "the preeminent forum in which we want to engage with this region," Rubio said. "I think Malaysia has done a good job of chairing it this year. We used that chairmanship where we were able to work with that chairmanship to de-escalate and ultimately end the Cambodia-Thailand conflict."
