Is the United States Retreating from the Institutional Order It Built in Asia?

Cover image: United States Department of State / Wiki Commons

This policy brief examines US institutional strategies in Asia and their consequences for regional stability and order. With Asian multilateralism at a crossroads, in no small part due to the second Trump administration’s disengagement with regional institutions, the paper argues that assertions of complete US disengagement are premature: institutional inertia, a durable foreign policy consensus on countering Beijing, and ongoing alliance cultivation maintain strong US regional agency. Rather than a total retreat, future US strategy will likely adapt to a modified regional architecture, one still anchored in the traditional ‘hub-and-spokes’ alliance structure, but increasingly shared with China and regional middle powers. Despite fluctuations in the United States’ approach to regional institutions and coalition-building in Asia over the past decade, Washington must remain actively engaged in strengthening the region’s institutional architecture