For many years, the US’ relationship with Cambodia has been among the many most fraught throughout Southeast Asia, a area the place the U.S.-China nice energy rivalry is quick intensifying. Up to now, Washington and Phnom Penh have vigorously sparred over points like democracy and human rights in addition to considerations about Cambodia’s strengthening Chinese language ties. Underneath U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration, nonetheless, that is shifting—maybe quickly and far to Washington’s strategic profit and Beijing’s strategic detriment. Certainly, latest developments with regard to Cambodia counsel that the US could have lastly discovered a option to play offense in China’s yard.
Whereas attending the annual Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia final week, Trump signed a brand new settlement with Cambodia (together with Malaysia and Thailand) to safe important minerals and step by step cut back reciprocal tariffs on choose Cambodian exports to the US. He additional presided over an ASEAN ceremony to mark a ceasefire (which Trump mislabeled as a “peace deal”) between Cambodia and its neighbor, Thailand. For the cellphone name Trump made to either side on July 26 to push them to deescalate their battle, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in August, lauding Trump for his “extraordinary statesmanship” that Hun argued was “important in stopping an awesome lack of lives and paved the best way in direction of the restoration of peace.” The query of benefit apart, the nomination was a wise piece of Cambodian diplomacy given Trump’s obsession with the peace prize.
For many years, the US’ relationship with Cambodia has been among the many most fraught throughout Southeast Asia, a area the place the U.S.-China nice energy rivalry is quick intensifying. Up to now, Washington and Phnom Penh have vigorously sparred over points like democracy and human rights in addition to considerations about Cambodia’s strengthening Chinese language ties. Underneath U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration, nonetheless, that is shifting—maybe quickly and far to Washington’s strategic profit and Beijing’s strategic detriment. Certainly, latest developments with regard to Cambodia counsel that the US could have lastly discovered a option to play offense in China’s yard.
Whereas attending the annual Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia final week, Trump signed a brand new settlement with Cambodia (together with Malaysia and Thailand) to safe important minerals and step by step cut back reciprocal tariffs on choose Cambodian exports to the US. He additional presided over an ASEAN ceremony to mark a ceasefire (which Trump mislabeled as a “peace deal”) between Cambodia and its neighbor, Thailand. For the cellphone name Trump made to either side on July 26 to push them to deescalate their battle, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in August, lauding Trump for his “extraordinary statesmanship” that Hun argued was “important in stopping an awesome lack of lives and paved the best way in direction of the restoration of peace.” The query of benefit apart, the nomination was a wise piece of Cambodian diplomacy given Trump’s obsession with the peace prize.
Previous to the ASEAN summit, the Trump administration lower Cambodia’s preliminary 49 p.c tariff charge all the way down to 19 p.c—the identical because the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally. Moreover, in July, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command held a bilateral protection dialogue with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces—the primary since 2017, uncoincidentally throughout Trump’s first time period. Over the summer time, there was some chatter that U.S. Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth would go to Cambodia as effectively. Though Hegseth’s printed itinerary for his present Indo-Pacific journey doesn’t embrace Cambodia, he should still present up as he’s already slated to cease in neighboring Vietnam.
This warming development in U.S.-Cambodia ties is immediately attributable to at least one factor: Trump’s authoritarian streak merely aligns higher with Cambodia’s personal authoritarianism. Following Vietnam’s army intervention in Cambodia in 1978 to carry down Pol Pot’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, Hun Manet’s father, Hun Sen, turned prime minister and dominated with an iron fist for 38 years, lastly ending his tenure in 2023. Hun Sen is presently a senator and stays an awfully highly effective determine in Cambodian politics—certainly stronger than his son, regardless of the latter’s workplace. In observe, which means Cambodia is accustomed to strongmen and the way they weaken democracy, legal guidelines, and norms—an agenda Trump has inarguably additionally pursued in America.
However how this interprets overseas issues, too. Cambodia has welcomed Trump’s defunding of U.S.-backed applications supporting civil society and the shuttering of Voice of America, which Hun Sen praised as “a serious contribution to eliminating faux information, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos world wide.” Trump’s insurance policies stand in stark distinction to these of earlier U.S. administrations. In the course of the Biden administration, for instance, then-Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited Phnom Penh in 2021 to debate Cambodia’s upcoming ASEAN chairmanship. Simply previous to her arrival, an editorial in a Cambodian state-run newspaper argued that as a substitute of haranguing Cambodia on values, the US ought to “additional intensify its growth cooperation” and “think about encouraging its buyers to spend money on Cambodia” like China has performed. Right now, the second Trump administration is definitely behaving extra like Beijing by way of conducting international coverage by way of the lens of commerce, funding, and provide chains above all else, with no strings connected in relation to values. And Trump’s technique seems to be working. Cambodian officers are reportedly now extra fascinated by opening their nation to U.S. companies, in response to an American legal professional who handles such issues. He stated “the sentiment has modified nearly in a single day” as a consequence of Trump’s insurance policies.
Trump’s success in Cambodia has additionally been propelled by deepening considerations within the nation about overdependence on China, significantly Beijing’s Belt and Street Initiative, which promotes infrastructure and different investments. Cambodia reportedly hosts as many as 100 such tasks value tens of billions of {dollars}. Excessive-profile tasks embrace the Phnom-Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, the Siem Reap Angkor Worldwide Airport, Sihanoukville Particular Financial Zone, and the Funan Techo Canal, which goals to join the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand—a controversial challenge from not simply an ecological but in addition a geostrategic perspective. Regardless, these tasks have incurred heavy money owed that should be repaid to China, contributing to Phnom Penh’s push to diversify towards the US. After Trump’s victory within the 2024 election, for instance, Hun Manet remarked that he sought to “elevate our current good bilateral ties to higher heights”—some extent he has persistently reiterated.
Regardless of latest U.S. inroads, China’s grip on Cambodia will stay a reality to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future. The China-Cambodia friendship actually is “ironclad” given not solely their deeply enmeshed financial ties but in addition Phnom Penh’s previous diplomatic help of Beijing’s initiatives on the United Nations and inside ASEAN on delicate points equivalent to management over the South China Sea. In 2012, for instance, the ASEAN Overseas Ministers’ Assembly didn’t problem a joint communique due to Chinese language stress on the chair, Cambodia, to keep away from statements that contradicted Beijing’s insurance policies on the South China Sea and different disputes. When it held the ASEAN chair once more in 2022, Cambodia did enable a joint communique to be launched that included some language that was unlikely to have happy China, suggesting that it sought to interrupt freed from Chinese language coercion in that second.
However total, Cambodia nonetheless prioritizes China over the US. In 2020, for example, Phnom Penh determined to demolish two U.S. Navy amenities on its Ream Naval Base to make means for Chinese language-funded infrastructure. Though Cambodia strenuously denied there could be a Chinese language army presence on the base, industrial satellite tv for pc imagery reveals a Chinese language army enclave at Ream, and sources on the bottom confirmed that the world is off-limits to Cambodians. This strongly means that Ream now hosts a Chinese language naval base, Beijing’s second such abroad facility after Djibouti. Cambodia has additionally not approved a U.S. Navy port name at Ream, regardless of having a yearslong request on the books.
Nonetheless, Trump’s strides in Cambodia inside just a few quick months are outstanding. And it isn’t simply the regime that may be a fan; it appears to be the Cambodian folks as effectively. Buddhist monks, for instance, have marched by way of the streets together with his picture, and authorities and enterprise leaders have in contrast him to none apart from God. Certainly, there’s now a push to rename one of many highways in Cambodia the “Donald Trump Freeway” in his honor. If it occurs, it’s going to complement the present “Xi Jinping Boulevard,” underscoring the aggressive nature of the connection with Cambodia.
Extra considerably, what the US has performed of late in Cambodia has broader implications for U.S. international coverage and grand technique. Trump’s jettisoning of values-speak in favor of prioritizing nationwide curiosity and financial transactions above all else—much like Beijing’s personal method—might give the US a important edge in partaking with different nations in Southeast Asia, the broader Indo-Pacific, and far of the worldwide south. Already, Trump has engaged different states that had tenuous ties with Washington, equivalent to Pakistan, on important minerals.
There are downsides to Washington’s newfound strategic benefit, after all. Trump could attempt to strike a important minerals cope with Myanmar quickly, operating the chance of constructing the civil battle there worse consequently. Prioritizing nationwide pursuits over values by such a large margin will additional erode what’s left of the rules-based worldwide order in favor of nice energy competitors.
However in the long run, guaranteeing that Beijing’s new world order—together with its domination of the Indo-Pacific and past—doesn’t come to fruition requires tough trade-offs, and this begins with higher U.S. pragmatism in locations like Cambodia.
