NOVEMBER 13 — One year into Donald Trump’s second term, the world is learning a brutal truth: America hasn’t returned. America has turned inward, sideways, and unpredictably feral.
And for a small trading nation like Malaysia, sitting between the ambitions of Beijing and the insecurities of Washington, nothing is more dangerous than a superpower that no longer knows what it wants.
Because today, the United States is doing something far more destabilising than declining — it is misfiring.
1. Trump’s America is now a domestic battlefield
Trump didn’t just deploy troops.
He poured the American military into American cities in ways not seen in the modern era.
• 38,000+ National Guard troops sent into blue cities regardless of state objections.
• Active-duty Marines patrolling the streets of Los Angeles.
• Repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 — the nuclear button of domestic force.
This isn’t law and order.
This is a stress test on the American constitution.
And every time the US turns its attention inward, the world turns more chaotic.
Countries like Malaysia depend on geopolitical predictability.
But how do you plan your national strategy when the world’s most powerful military is busy fighting shadows at home?
2. The Indo-Pacific has been abandoned — quietly, casually, and catastrophically
Everyone thought Trump 2.0 would be laser-focused on China.
But the truth is darker.
China is no longer Trump’s existential challenge.
It’s a bargaining chip.
How do we know?
• He signalled willingness to cut tariffs on US$490 billion (RM2.021 trillion) of Chinese imports in exchange for rare-earth access.
• He no longer talks about the “China threat” — he talks about “China deals.”
• US rhetoric towards Beijing has softened even as China expands military pressure in the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Trump has gone all-in on the Western Hemisphere:
• Threatening military strikes in Mexico — essentially an invasion of a neighbour.
• Openly discussing US “rights” to the Panama Canal.
• Reviving fantasies of acquiring Canada and Greenland.
• Conducting lethal maritime operations against Venezuela.
This is Washington’s new obsession:
Monroe Doctrine on steroids.
And in that obsession, Asia has quietly slipped off the front page.
This is catastrophic for Malaysia.
Because if Washington stops holding the line in the Indo-Pacific, China will write the script for the next 50 years.
3. A neutered Congress means a wild executive — and a wild America
Once upon a time, US institutions mattered.
Today, Congress has surrendered.
• Trump enjoys 90–92 per cent Republican approval.
• Retiring lawmakers — who owe him nothing — still refuse to oppose him.
• Foreign aid mandates? Ignored.
• Oversight rules? Side-stepped.
• Arms-sales reporting requirements? Steamrolled.
The legislative branch has gone silent.
The guardrails are gone.
For Malaysia, this means one thing:
The United States is one election away from policy whiplash of historic proportions.
No one — not China, not Europe, not Asean — can form long-term strategies around a nation that has abandoned its internal stabilisers.
4. Malaysia: Welcome to the new geopolitical minefield
Malaysia is a neutral, open, trade-reliant nation.
But when elephants start fighting, neutrality is not a shelter — it’s a tightrope.
Because here’s the regional math:
China’s rise accelerates when America looks away
• 14 major PLA maritime exercises in the South China Sea in 2024–25
• 32 per cent increase in Chinese coast guard patrols
• Estimated 9–12 per cent expansion in militia vessels
• China controls 70 per cent of rare-earth processing
• China accounts for 14.7 per cent of Malaysia’s total trade
When America retreats, China fills the space immediately and aggressively.
Malaysia’s semiconductor future is exposed
We’re the world’s:
• #1 exporter of semiconductor chips to the US
• 13 per cent of global packaging and testing
• 20 per cent of US chips pass through Malaysia
Any US-China blowup puts Penang, Kulim, Bayan Lepas, Batu Kawan — the heart of our industrial engine — directly in the blast radius.
Energy shocks will hit like a hammer
Malaysia subsidises fuel heavily.
Every US$10 jump in crude adds RM4–5 billion in subsidy costs.
A destabilised US foreign policy equals volatile oil.
Volatile oil equals fiscal pain — immediate, severe, and unavoidable.
Asean cannot rely on US naval presence
If US FONOPs (freedom-of-navigation patrols) reduce:
• China will enforce its South China Sea claims more aggressively.
• Our EEZ will see more intrusions.
• Our navy will face heavier pressure.
And Asean will not be able to collectively resist — because Asean cannot even agree on lunch, let alone a security doctrine.
5. What Malaysia must do — right now
This is not the time for polite diplomacy.
This is the time for strategy with teeth.
1. Build an Indo-Pacific survival plan
Not dependent on any superpower.
Not emotional.
Not ideological.
Cold. Hard. Calculated.
2. Turn Malaysia into the semiconductor Switzerland
A neutral, indispensable node.
The country every superpower needs — and therefore dares not squeeze.
3. Build a 90-day strategic petroleum reserve
Enough to ride out shocks from a US foreign policy meltdown.
4. Diversify trade like our lives depend on it
Because they do.
India. Japan. South Korea. GCC. East Africa.
Every corridor that bypasses great-power rivalry is a lifeline.
5. Become the diplomatic broker of Asean
We must not ask whether the US or China will dominate South-east Asia.
We must position ourselves so that everyone needs us and no one controls us.
The harsh truth
Trump’s second term is not an American story.
It is a story about the collapse of predictability — the one thing small nations depend on.
Malaysia cannot afford romantic illusions about the United States returning as the benevolent stabiliser of Asia.
That America is gone — maybe for good.
What replaces it is a country turning inward, lashing outward, and destabilising the world through its unpredictability.
And in that chaos lies the new strategic reality:
Small nations don’t survive by choosing sides.
They survive by becoming too important to ignore — and too dangerous to push around.
Malaysia must now become exactly that.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
