Nick Marsh
Asia Business Reporter in Kuala Lumpur

I’ve just been speaking to Malaysia’s trade minister, who admits Trump’s tariffs took his country by surprise.

“For us, we don’t think it was calculated fairly,” Zafrul Aziz
tells me in his office in Kuala Lumpur. “We believe that the information
that they have is not accurate — but it is what it is, we have to deal with
it”.

South East Asian countries, who operate as a loose economic bloc
known as Asean, function as a vital connection between the US and China.
Beijing has invested heavily in infrastructure and factories in the region – but America is still the biggest market for exporters here.

Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand were all hit with heavy
tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, until the recent 90-day pause to
allow for negotiations.

Zafrul is the man who will be leading Asean’s delegation with Washington, representing some 700 million people. He says he still doesn’t know
when that’ll be.

Can he get tariffs down to zero for Malaysia and its neighbours?
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he answers. “But we must try”.

Tomorrow, China’s President Xi Jinping will be in town, continuing
his so-called “charm offensive” tour of South East Asia.

Will he force this region to pick a side between Washington and
Beijing? “No – we can’t choose and we won’t choose,” Zafrul says.

“These two economic powers account for close to half of
global GDP – you simply can’t not deal with one side.”