The hopeless search for Trump’s cunning plan
Attempts to read grand strategy into the US president’s doings have run their course
IN SIEM Reap International Airport, your eyes don’t know whether to settle on the handsome vaulted ceiling or what must be the world’s most polished floor. How did Cambodia, not long ago one of the United Nations’ least developed countries, come to build so sleek and modern an asset in its second city? The billboards in the hall leave no doubt. Chinese investment and know-how did this.
In other news, the US is proposing 49 per cent tariffs on Cambodia. Neighbouring Vietnam gets just the 46 per cent (now, like everywhere save China, subject to a 90-day pause). Singapore, though it escapes with 10 per cent, now fears for its trade-led economic model.
If South-east Asia is the front line of the US-China contest – a match that Donald Trump chose, having cast his predecessors as soft touches for Beijing – these tariffs could drive wavering states into the Chinese orbit, and pro-US ones to start hedging. In other words, one “Make America Great Again” goal (the containment of China) contradicts another (“Liberation Day”).
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