Description: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced closer strategic and economic ties with Vietnam while on an official visit to the country’s capital, Hanoi. Both Japan and Vietnam are facing growing economic pressure from Trump’s tariffs as Vietnam has already hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade and strategic ties, while Japan engaged in trilateral trade negotiations with South Korea and China last month. Vietnam hosts the largest Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Canon and Panasonic with an estimated investment value of over $78 billion. Japanese banks are also integral to Vietnam’s lending system and hold a substantial strategic financial position in the Southeast Asian country. Vietnamese leader To Lam also expressed his inclination towards closer cooperation and urged the Japanese leader to invest more in infrastructure projects as Vietnam aimed at connecting Hanoi with the south business hub Ho Chi Min City. Details of the meeting between the leaders remained undisclosed as Ishiba was set to arrive on a similar visit to the Philippines, late on 29 Apr.
Impact: Southeast Asian countries have started to follow China’s strategic cue and morphed towards forming an economic bloc of strategic alliances to counter the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the global economy. Further strategic consolidation between countries in Asia could additionally compromise the US position in the global economy and deem the tariff policy considerably ineffective and short sighted. The trade war has become an unconventional battle of allegiances, where countries which previously were natural adversaries such as China and Japan are now conforming to the confrontational nature of the multi polar global power dynamics. The US tariff strategy still persists as most countries are strongly codependent on the outreach the US markets provide, however, the stability and predictability that is offered by China and other Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea could prevail as the winning strategy for global economic dominance.