US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a 90-day moratorium on implementing his shock-and-awe tariff regime, placing all countries on a 10 percent baseline, except China, which now faces a whopping 125 percent tax.

Just a day before, Trump had bragged that several countries are “kissing my @#$” and trying to negotiate trade deals.  

The US President’s bombastic comments came amid a global economic firestorm, with trillions of dollars being wiped out across bourses, including the American market.

While the market blowback might have prompted Trump to hit the pause button, several countries have indeed dispatched their top trade representatives to Washington to find common ground with the new American global policies. 

Among the states seeking a non-retaliatory path to mending ties with Washington are some of the world’s biggest economies like Japan,  India and South Korea.  

Some other Asian nations such as Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia – the last being hit with a 49 percent tariff – are also keen for a negotiated settlement,  unlike China, which has responded in kind to Trump’s tariffs. 

Economic analysts say that unlike China, which is the biggest adversary to the US on the global stage, these Asian states want to adopt cooperative attitudes and strike deals for lower US tariffs on their exports through bilateral meetings. 

“India was taken aback by a 26 percent reciprocal tariff, which is 2.5x+ of the current tariff gap. Indian policymakers seek to avoid retaliation, hoping to gain a bilateral trade agreement with the US and then lower the effective tariff rate,” says Dan Steinbock, an internationally-acclaimed author with expertise on the multipolar world economy. 

South Korea’s acting President Han Duck-soo also signalled that the Asian state wants to negotiate with the US. 

“I don’t think that kind of fighting back will improve the situation dramatically,” he told CNN. “I think we should, in a very cool way, assess what this kind of 25 percent means for us, and we should, in a very cool way, negotiate with them,” he added. 

Negotiate to lower tariffs 

Though China is trying to create an Asian front against the US tariffs, “the region is diverse”, Steinbock tells TRT World. 

“Exporters like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, even Thailand and Malaysia are taking disproportionate hits. More insular large commodity producers like Indonesia are no longer immune,” he says. 

On Monday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh demanded a 45-day delay in the imposition of US tariffs on the Asian state in exchange for buying defence products and other goods from Washington, which had led a disastrous military invasion of the communist state from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s. 

Vietnam also dispatched the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc to Washington to negotiate with Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary. 

Cambodia and Thailand also seek negotiations with the US to lower their respective tariffs. 

“Advanced tiny states such as Singapore seek to hedge bets with cautious balancing. By contrast, the Philippines led by pro-US Marcos Jr, hopes trade exemptions in exchange for its geopolitics,” says Steinbock, who had earlier served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). 

Among other Asian states, the Philippines, a pro-US state, sees an opportunity in Trump's trade war with China, pivoting itself as an alternative manufacturing hub to Beijing, according to the New York Times. 

Small vs big

Bayram Veli Salur, Chief Investment Officer at the Istanbul-based Kuveyt Turk Asset Management, has a similar take to Steinbock regarding why relatively small Asian economies like Cambodia, Vietnam and others are seeking to compromise with the US. 

“One of the most important factors here is the economies of scale. Looking at the ones that retaliate against Trump's tariff plan are large dominant powers like the EU and China,” Salur tells TRT World. 

The EU, which initially offered a zero-tariff zone with Washington, had also signalled that the bloc would retaliate against Trump’s tariffs in three different phases. Trump hit the EU with 20 percent tariffs before the pause. 

The EU tariffs would “target about 21 billion euros, or roughly $23 billion, of U.S. goods, marking the bloc’s first counterstrike against the Trump administration’s trade measures,” according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The EU and China “have scale, relevant supply chain infrastructure and economic/financial power to support retaliation to some extent,” says Salur. However, relatively smaller countries like Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand “do not have these abilities,” he adds.  

Trump has already threatened countries against retaliating against his tariffs, saying that they would face even more punishing measures. He increased Chinese tariffs to 104 percent from 54 percent after Beijing’s retaliation and then upped the same to 125 percent. 

Treasury Secretary Bessent also has tough words for states which can potentially reach an agreement with China to escape the US tariffs, saying that it “would be (like) cutting your own throat." 

He also signalled that the US seeks a geopolitical alignment against China: "I think ... at the end of the day that we can probably reach a deal with our allies, with the other countries that have been ... good military allies and not perfect economic allies. And then we can approach China as a group." 

If Trump does impose the same tariffs as China to smaller Asian states, “it’d be disastrous for them,” according to Salur. 

Prior to his backdown, Trump ratcheted up his harsh tariffs rhetoric, saying that “We can make a really fair deal… a good deal for the United States, not a good deal for others. This is America first.” Trump has long tom-tommed his dealmaking skills that he claims benefit both sides. 

Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s top trade advisers, whom Elon Musk recently called Peter Retarrdo in an apparent crack in the Trump administration, also suggested that the US talks with nations imposed by large tariffs is “not a negotiation. For the US, it is a national emergency triggered by trade deficits caused by a rigged system.” 

But some analysts fear this high-handed approach might backfire on the US. 

The tariffs imposed on poorer Asian nations like Vietnam and Cambodia “drive people into the arms of China, who will offer pretty good trade terms while we’re in the process of conducting this massive tariff carpet bombing,” said James Stavridis, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.