As Trump makes rare visit to Malaysia, PM Anwar’s balance is tested | Donald Trump News

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When US President Donald Trump lands in Malaysia for the Southeast Asia summit this weekend, he will offer Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim a diplomatic coup.

U.S. presidents rarely visit Malaysia, a multiracial nation of 35 million sandwiched between Thailand and Singapore, which has maintained a decades-long policy of not choosing sides in great-power rivalries.

Trump is only the third US leader to visit the Southeast Asian country, which is hosting an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit from Sunday to Tuesday, following visits by former US presidents Barack Obama and Lyndon B Johnson.

After missing ASEAN summits in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Trump, whose disdain for multilateralism is known, will attend the gathering of Southeast Asian countries for only the second time.

The US president will be joined by a number of high-level leaders from non-ASEAN countries, including Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom Trump is expected to meet in South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next week, opted not to attend.

Trump’s visit, in many ways, is emblematic of the delicate balance Anwar’s government has sought to maintain as Malaysia faces headwinds from the heated rivalry between the United States and China.

Malaysia is deeply linked to the American and Chinese economies.

The United States, which has a strong footprint in Malaysia’s technology, oil and gas sectors, was the Southeast Asian country’s top foreign investor and third-largest trading partner in 2024.

China, a major buyer of Malaysian electronics and palm oil, took first place in terms of trade and third in terms of investment that same year.

But Malaysia’s efforts to draw a line between Washington and Beijing have become increasingly difficult as the superpowers implement tariffs and export controls, while clashing over regional hotspots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“Optimally, Malaysia wants to productively engage China and the United States on a variety of issues,” said Thomas Daniel, an analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur.

“It’s in our interest,” Daniel told Al Jazeera.

Anwar presented Trump’s visit as an opportunity to strengthen economic ties, uphold regional peace and stability, and elevate ASEAN’s standing on the international stage.

Anwar also pledged to use the rare opportunity to meet Trump to constructively raise points of difference between Washington and Kuala Lumpur, particularly the Palestinian cause.

“The guideline is autonomy: avoiding entanglement, maximizing options and extracting benefits from both poles without becoming anyone’s proxy,” Awang Azman Awang Pawi, a professor at the University of Malaysia, told Al Jazeera.

During Trump’s visit, US tariffs on Malaysia, currently set at 19%, and Chinese export controls on rare earths are expected to be high on the agenda.

For Malaysia, the priority is to preserve “rules-based” trade that allows countries to deepen economic ties despite their political differences, said Mohd Ramlan Mohd Arshad, a lecturer at MARA University of Technology in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur.

A prolonged economic cold war between the United States and China is the “worst thing” that could happen to Malaysia, Arshad told Al Jazeera.

Trump, who has made no secret of his ambitions for the Nobel Peace Prize, is also expected to attend the signing of a peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, which engaged in a brief border conflict in July that left at least 38 people dead.

For Anwar, who has led a multiracial coalition of parties with diverse and competing interests since 2022, the balancing act also involves political considerations at the national level.

US support for Israel’s war in Gaza is a bone of contention in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where the plight of the Palestinians has sparked frequent public protests.

As the summit approaches, critics have demanded that Anwar rescind Trump’s invitation because of his role in supporting the war, which a United Nations commission of inquiry last month called genocide.

“A person like Trump, no matter how powerful he is, should not be welcome in Malaysia,” former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar’s former mentor turned enemy, said in a video message last month.

Defending the invitation, Anwar emphasized his view of diplomacy as “practical work” to advance his country’s interests “in an imperfect world.”

“It requires balance, discipline and the courage to stay the course even when the ground shifts beneath our feet,” he told a conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

As a small power, Malaysia has always placed pragmatism at the center of its foreign policy, said Sharifah Munirah Alatas, professor of international relations at the National University of Malaysia.

“Anwar and Malaysia cannot afford to do otherwise,” Alatas told Al Jazeera.

“And given the current highly unpredictable Sino-US tensions induced by the Trump 2.0 era, ASEAN will remain actively non-aligned, without taking sides. »

Awang Azman, a professor at the University of Malaysia, said that while Trump’s visit alone will raise the profile of Malaysia and ASEAN, the real test of the summit’s success will be tangible results on issues such as the Thailand-Cambodia conflict and trade.

“It’s not just a photo op if a ceasefire agreement and concrete trade terms fall on paper,” Awang Azman said.

“If either track ends, the visit will still have symbolic significance – given the rarity of US presidential trips to Malaysia – but the narrative will revert to a focus on results. »