Trump's 2025 shake-up of the world order has put the Indo-Pacific balance of power back in play

The impact of Trump 2.0: The year saw a stark turn in US engagement, with Trump’s approach to the Indo-Pacific characterized by unpredictability at best and rent-seeking at worst.The recently-released US National Security Strategy was emblematic of this ambiguity, prioritizing quid pro quo ties over legacy commitments and the use of muscular rhetoric while offering little doctrinal clarity.This has sent out mixed signals on China, as its deterrence rhetoric coexists with policy fuzziness and even deference in some parts, with US partners struggling to identify US thresholds for action, particularly on high-stakes issues such as Taiwan.Despite the rhetorical turbulence emanating from Washington, alliance architectures did not collapse, although they didn’t sprint forward either.Traditional security partnerships with Japan, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines have endured amid a sobering realization of the magnitude of US capabilities, particularly vis-à-vis strategic concerns about China.Nonetheless, the pace and predictability of strategic cooperation have waned, which is telling in the context of a tenuous regional landscape.Hence, although formal alliances will continue to matter, their political meaning has shifted, with partner countries less willing now to outsource strategy entirely to Washington and more inclined to shape outcomes independently, reflecting a post-‘hub-and-spokes complacency’ mindset.Similarly, multilateral formats like the Quad persisted and adapted, but the coherence of their agenda often reflected leadership from partners as much as from Washington.Initiatives such as maritime domain awareness and cooperation on critical minerals, for example, were driven more on the ground by Canberra,