Washington’s decision to filter weapons sales through an “America First” lens is sending tremors across Southeast Asia. On February 6, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a new arms transfer strategy that ranks prospective buyers by three criteria: whether they invest in their own defense, whether they occupy geography critical to U.S. military plans, and whether they contribute to American economic security. For a region where most countries check one of those boxes at best, the implications are stark. Nations that fall short of the rubric risk being pushed toward alternative suppliers — including the very rivals Washington claims to be countering.
The order represents more than a bureaucratic reshuffling. As the Stimson Center noted, it elevates economic and industrial returns over the alliance-building logic that guided American security cooperation for decades. In a region where China is the largest trading partner for nearly every ASEAN member, that shift could accelerate a drift that Washington can ill afford.
Winners and Losers Across ASEAN
The Philippines stands out as the most obvious beneficiary. Manila’s long coastlines face the disputed South China Sea, through which roughly a third of global shipping passes, and its territory sits less than 100 miles from Taiwan’s southern tip. The U.S. is already planning to deploy additional missile systems there, and the recent bilateral strategic dialogue identified over 500 joint military exercises for 2024–2026. Under the new criteria, continuing to arm the Philippines aligns perfectly with Washington’s China strategy.
Singapore also fits the mold, though imperfectly. The city-state spends only 2.7 percent of GDP on defense, well below the 3.5 percent threshold Trump favors. But its position at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca — the chokepoint connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans — makes it indispensable to any blockade scenario against Chinese shipping. Assistant Secretary of State Michael DeSombre reinforced this during his visit to the region this month, explicitly linking the strait to American economic security.
Cambodia presents a stranger case. The Trump administration lifted a longstanding arms embargo against Phnom Penh in early February, a move that appears linked to a critical minerals deal signed at the ASEAN summit in October. Cambodia has long relied on Chinese-built military equipment, and access to American hardware could help diversify its arsenal — though whether Phnom Penh can afford much of it remains doubtful. Malaysia and Thailand signed similar minerals agreements with Trump, but neither has seen tangible arms benefits yet.
The Casualties of Transactional Logic
Indonesia and Vietnam are likely to lose ground. Both have been cultivated as emerging strategic partners over the past decade, and DeSombre’s recent stops in Jakarta and Hanoi struck cooperative tones on maritime security. But neither country occupies the geographic sweet spot the Philippines and Singapore hold in American war planning. Both maintain traditions of strict nonalignment that make them unlikely to pledge tangible military contributions to a U.S.-led contingency. And both still depend heavily on Russian arms — a factor the Lowy Institute flagged when noting that Russia cornered 25 percent of Southeast Asia’s weapons market in recent years.
Meanwhile, Laos and Myanmar could receive unexpected attention thanks to their critical mineral reserves. The Trump administration reportedly explored whether to support Myanmar’s ruling junta in exchange for resource access, raising uncomfortable questions about how far transactional thinking might stretch.
For Brunei and Timor-Leste, the picture is bleaker. Neither country has the strategic weight or resource leverage to register on Washington’s new priority list. They will simply fall off the map.
A Self-Defeating Strategy?
The new arms policy does not operate in isolation. It sits alongside Trump’s National Security Strategy, which names Chinese control of the South China Sea as a direct threat to the American economy. But by tying weapons access to immediate reciprocity — minerals deals, defense spending thresholds, geographic utility — the administration risks undermining the very network it needs to execute that strategy.
Countries shut out by Washington will not sit idle. According to SIPRI data, global arms imports have shifted toward diversified supplier pools, with South Korea, India, and European manufacturers expanding sales into the region. Some ASEAN members may also turn to China itself, which already supplies equipment to several states in the bloc. The irony of an anti-China strategy that pushes fence-sitters closer to Beijing is hard to miss.
There is also the consistency problem. Washington’s offer to sell unspecified weapons to Bangladesh — a country that meets none of the stated criteria — suggests the rubric may bend when other interests intervene, particularly trade agreements. If allies perceive the rules as selectively enforced, trust erodes even faster than the policy intends.
The deeper risk is structural. Alliances are built on predictability and shared commitment over time, not quarter-by-quarter deal-making. By converting security partnerships into transactions, the United States may secure better terms on individual sales while hollowing out the political goodwill that gives those partnerships strategic value. At a moment when great-power competition in Asia demands cohesion, Washington is introducing uncertainty into its own alliance system — and its competitors are watching.
Original analysis inspired by Derek Grossman from Foreign Policy. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
