Reported by Al Jazeera
Hit hard by Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war on Iran, countries in the Asia-Pacific region want ‘enormous changes’ in US foreign policy.
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and businesses reeling from the energy shock of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran are watching Tuesday’s US midterm elections closely.
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Many want to see “enormous changes” during the rest of President Donald Trump’s term, analysts say, from the war on Iran to his policies on trade and tariffs. But few expect that to happen, even with the Democrats poised to take the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate, from Trump’s Republican Party.
“Of course, everybody is watching,” said Steven Okun, a trade specialist and the chief executive of APAC Advisors, a Singapore-based consulting firm. “It’s great political theatre.”
Outside the Middle East, no region has been hit harder by the war on Iran than the Asia-Pacific. Before the start of the conflict in January, the region took in most of the Gulf oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.
When Iran closed the chokepoint in response to the US and Israel’s strikes, much of the region was left facing shortages .
The Philippines, which relies on the Gulf for more than 90 percent of its crude oil imports, has been under a national energy emergency since March. Soaring fuel costs have drained the foreign exchange reserves of the region’s poorest economies – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and East Timor, according to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have also spent heavily on fuel subsidies to shield consumers, it said.
Public opinion in the Asia-Pacific region remains firmly opposed to the war, but Okun said a Democratic-controlled US Congress was unlikely to force Trump to end the eight-month conflict.
“With Iran, I don’t see [a Democrat-controlled Congress] having much change at all, other than the fact that the war will be investigated and there will be oversight hearings,” Okun told…