Why crisis-hit Asia is unlikely to embrace Trump’s America 250 party

A driver pushes his auto rickshaw to get compressed natural gas at a filling station in Peshawar, Pakistan, as the government reduces the station’s working hours to save energy on March 18.

Photo: AP US President Donald Trump has appointed Nick Adams, the Australian-American social media influencer and self-styled “alpha male”, as special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism and values. “I look forward to serving as America’s brand ambassador, bringing the message of America’s excellence to the entire world,” Adams wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “With America 250, the Fifa World Cup and the Olympics coming up, the world needs to be reminded of all we have to offer.” He’s right the world needs reminding.

He has the diagnosis correct, but his prescription is backwards.

Brand America has taken a beating since January 2025 with tariffs on partners and allies and an immigration policy hostile to foreigners.

The joint war with Israel against Iran and the economic pain it brings to Asia worsens the damage.

This year, US embassies across the Asia-Pacific are asking both US and foreign companies – now absorbing the economic fallout of the Iran conflict – to fund themed spectacles from snow and ice sculptures in Hokkaido to a rodeo and a Rockefeller Centre-style Christmas tree in Singapore.

Even before it launched the war, the United States was not reading the room.

Now, continuing to push for donations in this geopolitical and economic environment would be even more damaging.

Trump’s “America first” trade policy, the treatment of nations who once considered themselves to be US partners and the choice of spectacle over substance for the US’ 250th anniversary celebrations are eroding Brand America across the region.

The Iran conflict pours accelerant on a fire already burning.

New polling from Blackbox Research, conducted last month across Singapore and Malaysia, puts the damage in stark terms.

Approval for the US-Israel strikes on Iran sits below 20 per cent in both countries.

Nearly two-thirds of Singaporeans now view the US less favourably than before the conflict began.

The public doesn’t buy the US security rationale for launching the war.

Across both countries, people read this as Trump’s war of choice.

The fears that follow are economic rather than ideological: higher energy prices and slower growth.

This is a bill the region expects to pay for a war it did not choose and will not bring it any be

原文链接: 南华早报