Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Tuesday his country and Association of Southeast Asian Nations partners will dispatch officials to Washington for talks following President Donald Trump’s rollout of global tariffs.
“There may be limited room to revisit the underlying intent, but there is still scope for adjusting the policy’s implementation,” Anwar said in his opening speech at the Asean Investment Conference 2025 in Kuala Lumpur. “The global trading system is under intense strain, more so than at any point in recent memory.”
Southeast Asian nations were hard hit by the so-called reciprocal tariffs rolled out by Trump last week, though they vary depending on each country’s trade relationship with the United States. Malaysia faces a 24% levy, US tariffs on Indonesia were set at 32%, Vietnamese exports will be charged at 46% and Thai exports at 36%. The US tariff on Singapore was set at 10%, while the levy for the Philippines will be 17%.
Malaysia is the current chair of the Asean group of 10 Southeast Asian countries. Anwar said over the weekend that Malaysia will lead efforts to coordinate a regional response by Southeast Asia towards US tariffs.
On Tuesday, he deviated slightly from a distributed written copy of the speech by specifically mentioning Asean’s role in US talks.
“As part of our soft diplomacy of quiet engagement — and I built this consensus among Asean leaders — we will be despatching together with our colleagues in Asean, our officials to Washington to begin the process of dialogue,” Anwar said.
Noting that the bloc accounts for total trade in goods of $3.5 trillion, Anwar also called for more internal economic cooperation, including more regulatory alignment, cross-border logistical work and digital connectivity.
“With the barrage of tariffs sweeping across the world in fast and furious fashion, we are witnessing the fraying of the global order,” Anwar said. “Therefore, Asean must rely more on itself.”
Anwar, who was Malaysia’s finance minister during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis until he fell from grace with then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, said the “Trump tariffs” are not the first challenge to multilateralism and won’t be the last.
“If Asean can hold its nerve – staying open, pragmatic and cohesive – it may yet be among the last believers in a world that works better when it works together," he said.
