Since his return to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has inarguably made U.S. foreign policy far more transactional and far less predictable than it was under all other previous administrations, including his own first term. This applies not just to Washington’s rupture in its relations with Europe and the Americas, but also across the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. allies and partners alike continue to reel from Trump’s erratic behavior. The latest case in point is South Korea—which thought it had a deal to lower reciprocal tariffs from an initial 25 percent to 20 percent, only to wake up last week to Trump deciding to reimpose 25 percent tariffs because he believed that Seoul was not moving quickly enough to implement the original deal.

Simply put, what Trump calls “deals” are typically just handshake agreements and nothing more. They are always subject to instantaneous change, depending on Trump’s mood and the politics of the moment—and thus, any “deal” that any country makes with the United States cannot and should not be trusted. This is why many Indo-Pacific nations’ attempts to appease him have failed.

Since his return to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has inarguably made U.S. foreign policy far more transactional and far less predictable than it was under all other previous administrations, including his own first term. This applies not just to Washington’s rupture in its relations with Europe and the Americas, but also across the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. allies and partners alike continue to reel from Trump’s erratic behavior. The latest case in point is South Korea—which thought it had a deal to lower reciprocal tariffs from an initial 25 percent to 20 percent, only to wake up last week to Trump deciding to reimpose 25 percent tariffs because he believed that Seoul was not moving quickly enough to implement the original deal.

Simply put, what Trump calls “deals” are typically just handshake agreements and nothing more. They are always subject to instantaneous change, depending on Trump’s mood and the politics of the moment—and thus, any “deal” that any country makes with the United States cannot and should not be trusted. This is why many Indo-Pacific nations’ attempts to appease him have failed.

Take India. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s red carpet visit to the White House in February 2025, Trump proceeded to levy higher-than-expected tariffs, including additional levies that were ostensibly intended to punish New Delhi for importing Russian oil, but more likely because he was angry at Modi for not buying into his fantasy of having made peace between India and Pakistan after their four-day war last year. Trump further delayed signing a bilateral free trade agreement before finally agreeing to a very unfair deal for India this week. He hasalso criticized India for being a “dead economy” and refreshed U.S. ties with Pakistan, which Modi believes launched the attack that started the war.

Japan is another example. After Washington told the U.S. treaty ally for years that it needed to step up defense spending and prepare to assist in a potential military conflict with China over Taiwan, Trump told Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi late last year to tone down her public comments on Japan’s need to protect Taiwan. Under Japan’s current government, defense spending is expected to reach 2 percent of GDP by March, two years earlier than planned. In part, this is to appease Trump, but there has been little reciprocation from Washington. Moreover, Trump’s tariffs on Japanese goods now stand at 15 percent, a stubbornly high level for a long-standing ally.

The list of aggrieved U.S. allies and partners in the region goes on. One could easily include Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and perhaps others as well.

But there is one country—Malaysia—that has seemingly pulled off the impossible. At least so far, it has preserved relatively cordial and productive ties to the United States without appeasing Trump by compromising its core principles. This is a story that may have wider applicability over the next three years.

To be sure, Malaysia didn’t start out on the right foot. After Hamas launched its massacrein Israel in 2023 and the latter retaliated by invading and bombing Gaza, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim openly supported Hamas. Trump had not been sworn into office yet, but given his pro-Israel stance, it seemed reasonable to expect relations with Kuala Lumpur to be rocky.

Yet once Trump was in power, Malaysia was able to negotiate a relatively low 19 percent tariff for its products—the same rate as Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, but lower than several Southeast Asian neighbors. Malaysia also quickly sought to look past any policy differences in the Middle East and instead focus on its 2025 chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio paid Malaysia an official visit last summer, but he spent only 36 hours on the ground. “Can I take his passport away?” Anwar jokingly asked in front of Rubio.

As short and counterproductive as it was, Rubio’s visit nonetheless laid the groundwork for Trump to attend the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur in October. It appears that the attraction for Trump was not the substance of the summit but the opportunity to grab the spotlight and improve his chances of winning his coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

Winning further points with Trump, Ibrahim let Trump preside over a peace deal signing ceremony between Cambodia and Thailand. During the summit, Anwar also appeared to cultivate a personal relationship. Referring to his own roughly nine years in jail, he quipped that “I was in prison; Trump almost got there.” Trump, of course, lapped it all up.

More substantively, Malaysia also agreed—along with Cambodia and Thailand—to ink a new agreement giving the United States greater access to the country’s critical minerals. One constant in Trump’s second term is his fixation on critical minerals supplies to keep them out of Chinese hands. Pakistan has similarly tried to entice Trump, who is also interested in Australia, Indonesia, and even war-torn Myanmar for the same purpose.

Another factor working in Malaysia’s favor when engaging Trump is that it carries no alliance expectations. It is a partner, not a treaty ally, and that distinction matters. All six U.S. treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand—naturally expect more from the United States because of the formal commitments embedded in their alliances. But because Trump’s second term is ruthlessly focused on an “America First” foreignpolicy, allies have generally bemoaned Washington’s diminished engagement and cooperation. Malaysia, however, has virtually zero expectations of the United States in this regard. Over time, Trump has proven that he strongly prefers burden-free relationships over alliances that come with inherited obligations, making Malaysia very comfortable with the current nature of its bilateral ties.

Finally, Malaysia also benefits from sharing a broadly compatible worldview with Trump and his administration. As laid out in the new U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, Trump sees the world in starkly hierarchical terms: There are strong countries and weak countries, and the international system is transitioning from a unipolar to multipolar arrangement dominated by the United States and China as rival powers. Trump prefers that they coexist in a new order premised on each having its sphere of influence.

Kuala Lumpur has its own disagreements with Beijing, especially over sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, but it also values and cultivates good relations with China. Malaysia, like most countries in Southeast Asia, seeks to remain nonaligned to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing either great power. Trump has shown a distinct aversion to unambiguously opposing an adversary—whether it’s China or Russia—that he might one day wish to be friendly with, and this has further ingratiated Malaysia to him.

All of this should be tempered, however. Trump is inherently unpredictable and could lash out at any moment, for almost any reason, and with little warning. That said, Malaysia has demonstrated—at least for now—that it is possible not only to enter but also to remain in Trump’s good graces, even as it opposes some of his actions, such as his creation of the Board of Peace.

It isn’t always apparent why others have failed at engaging Trump. But typically, one or more of these factors—personal rapport with Trump, substantive policy deliverables, absence of an encumbering alliance, and a shared worldview—are missing, creating friction with the White House. Malaysia offers a useful blueprint, and while it is not easily replicable—particularly for treaty allies—it suggests that managing Trump may be less about outright concessions and more about careful calibration.

For countries willing and able to play that game, Malaysia has shown that it’s possible to not only survive Trump but also potentially even thrive under him.