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FINANCIAL TIMES Obama’s pivot to Asia remains unfinished The outgoing US president is unable to offer reassurance to its nations
Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” was always well founded. The world’s gravity is shifting eastward and it makes sense for the US to adjust to that reality. Yet as America’s leader conducts his farewell trip to Asia, there are real questions about whether the pivot will outlast his presidency. The most pressing concern is whether Donald Trump will succeed Mr Obama in the White House. The Manhattan tycoon’s “America first” mantra undercuts the bipartisan assumptions that have driven 70 years of US foreign policy, not least in the Asia Pacific. Pax Americana has by and large kept the peace and underwritten the expansion of trade and investment that has fuelled the region’s dramatic rise to prosperity. There is little Mr Obama can tell his hosts that they do not already know. Hillary Clinton — the region’s unspoken choice as the next US president — remains odds-on favourite to win in November. But nothing is as certain as it used to be. That especially holds for America’s stance on trade. Mr Obama’s Transpacific Partnership is the economic centrepiece of his Asia rebalancing. Yet there are real doubts as to whether he can persuade Congress to enact it before he leaves office. The only realistic hope is to push it through during the lame-duck session after the election. If that fails, then all bets are off. All three remaining presidential candidates, including Mrs Clinton, oppose the TPP. Even if Mrs Clinton is doing a classic bait and switch on the US electorate, she would find it politically impossible to push TPP through in its current form. Yet America’s key partners, notably Japan, but also many of the other 10 signatories, would be loath to reopen the complex multilateral deal. To be sure, a Trump victory would kill it dead. But a Clinton victory would offer no guarantee of success. On this, as elsewhere, Mr Obama is ill-placed to offer his Asian counterparts the “strategic reassurance” they need. The same applies to the region’s geopolitical security. The unstated aim of Mr Obama’s pivot was to hedge against a rising China’s hegemonic ambitions. Alas, that fear has been borne out under Xi Jinping. China’s aggressive land reclamation drive on the disputed sandbanks of the South China Sea has sharpened its neighbours’ demand for a stronger US military presence. Mr Obama has responded by striking bilateral deals with Australia, the Philippines and, most recently, Vietnam, on which this week he lifted America’s longstanding arms embargo. A Clinton victory would ensure continuity of the security dimension — and possibly more; a Trump victory would shred its most basic assumptions. There are intriguing signs of a debate among Chinese senior officials about whether a Trump White House might actually serve China’s interests. Mr Trump has vowed to abandon America’s “freeriding” allies to their fate, notably Japan and South Korea, which would be music to Beijing’s ears. Yet he has also mused recklessly of encouraging both countries to develop independent nuclear arsenals. In reality, China is likely to be as puzzled by Mr Trump’s rise as everyone else. Here again, Mr Obama’s balm is unlikely to soothe nerves. More broadly there are growing doubts about whether the US can sustain its appetite for global engagement. Even if Mr Trump loses in November, a Clinton administration would still have to grapple with the rising protectionist and anti-immigrant mood in America’s heartlands. For Asia, as elsewhere, a Trump defeat would be unlikely to offer sufficient reassurance. His America-first agenda needs to be repudiated by a landslide.
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