War, tariffs and China: What the US midterms mean for the Asia-Pacific region | News 2026 US midterm elections

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and businesses, reeling from the U.S. energy shock and Israel’s war against Iran, are closely watching Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections.

Many want to see “huge changes” during the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term, analysts say, from the war with Iran to his policies on trade and tariffs. But few expect that to happen, even as Democrats are poised to take the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate, from Trump’s Republican Party.

“Of course, everyone is watching,” said Steven Okun, a trade expert and managing director of APAC Advisors, a Singapore-based consulting firm. “It’s great political theater.”

Outside of the Middle East, no region has been hit harder by the war with Iran than the Asia-Pacific. Before the conflict began in January, the region absorbed most of the Gulf’s oil and gas transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.

When Iran closed the bottleneck in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes, much of the region found itself facing shortages.

The Philippines, which relies on the Gulf for more than 90% of its crude oil imports, has been facing a national energy emergency since March. Soaring fuel prices have depleted 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 of Singapore. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam also spent heavily on fuel subsidies to protect consumers, the report said.

Public opinion in the United States and the Asia-Pacific region remains strongly opposed to the war, but Okun said it was unlikely that a Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress would force Trump to end the eight-month-old conflict.

“With Iran, I don’t see much change (in a Democratic-controlled Congress), other than the war will be investigated and there will be oversight hearings,” Okun told Al Jazeera. “We might even see an impeachment of the Secretary of Defense, but that won’t change the overall impact of the war. »

Under the US Constitution, Congress holds the power to formally declare war, but Trump has claimed the attacks on Iran were acts of self-defense and has so far ignored congressional resolutions ordering him to withdraw US forces from hostilities. If a Democratic-controlled Congress passes legislation restricting military operations or reducing their funding, Trump can veto it.

To override a veto, you need a two-thirds majority in both chambers, something Democrats certainly won’t be able to achieve.

“The prices do not change”

Also when it comes to trade and tariffs, analysts see little room for Congress to rein in Trump.

The US president shook global markets last year when he imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of 10-50% on some 90 countries in a bid to reduce the US trade deficit. The Asia-Pacific region was once again hit harder than most other countries. Around 15 countries were hit with tariffs, with Cambodia facing tariffs of 49 percent and Laos 48 percent. Vietnam received 46 percent and Myanmar 45 percent.

After the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February, the Trump administration turned to other tools. In July, he imposed tariffs of 10 percent and 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, accusing them of failing to stop imports made with forced labor. In Asia, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea and seven Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“In a way, the new Congress will not matter for the Asia-Pacific region, because it will not affect trade policy,” Okun said. “Congress can’t change this…Tariffs don’t change. War doesn’t change.”

Some analysts nevertheless see a narrow opening of customs duties.

Stephen Olson, a visiting scholar at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, argued in a recent essay that a “strong rebuke of ‘Trumpism'” in the election could embolden a pro-free trade wing of the Republican Party that has been “bullied into retreat during the Trump presidency.”

This, Olson writes, offers “a glimmer of hope” to Southeast Asian countries that rely on the U.S. market. A Democratic-controlled Congress, he added, could also push for exclusions and exceptions that would give the region’s exporters “a modicum of relief.” But any deeper changes in U.S. trade policy, he added, will have to wait until the 2028 presidential election.

Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the region’s wish list goes beyond trade and concerns security.

“I think almost all of Asia would like to see huge changes, in many areas, during the rest of Trump’s term,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I think a lot of the region thinks that’s not going to happen.” »

Besides “more stability” in trade and tariff policy, countries in the Asia-Pacific region “would like to feel more stable thanks to security guarantees from the United States,” he said. They would also like a “clearer and more obvious U.S. presence” in the South China Sea, where China’s claims overlap with those of five Southeast Asian countries, and in the Taiwan Strait, which separates China from Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory.

Businesses will also be watching whether a major Republican defeat would result in “a greater willingness by the Republican Party in Congress to stand up to Trump, alongside Democrats, on issues important to business in Asia,” Kurlantzick said, including tariffs, trade policy, arms sales and “overall economic unpredictability.”

US-China ties

One area where analysts expect Congress to act is on China.

The new Congress, regardless of which party controls it, will pass tighter restrictions on China’s access to technology, said Okun of APAC Advisors.

These include the Remote Access Security Act, which would extend export controls to remote access to U.S. goods, software or technology, and the Chip Security Act, which would require companies to verify that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips remain in authorized locations, to prevent their diversion to foreign adversaries. It also includes the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act, known as the MATCH Act, which would push allies to align their controls over chipmaking equipment with Washington’s, to keep advanced chipmaking technology out of China’s hands.

“The next Congress will pass them regardless of the midterm elections, because both parties agree on them,” Okun said. “The person who is currently the least restrictive towards China is the American president,” he added, referring to Trump’s courting of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The two men have met twice this year as ties warmed after a bitter and costly trade war last year. To preserve the fragile trade truce, Trump also delayed approval of a $14 billion package of arms sales to Taiwan, which would be the largest ever for Taipei.

Some analysts, for their part, fear that a lame-duck Trump, locked at home by a Democratic Congress, will turn more forcefully to foreign policy.

“We shouldn’t be surprised by a continued erratic foreign policy,” said James Guild, an assistant professor at Indonesia’s International Islamic University.

“Democrats have a poor record of effectively opposing and holding Trump accountable using the conventional tools of congressional oversight,” Guild said. “We’ll have to wait and see if they’re up to the task this time.”