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Southeast Asia Navigates U.S. Tariffs: An Octa Broker Analysis
Ever since Donald Trump became the 47th President of the United States (U.S.), the markets have grown increasingly concerned about the health of the world economy. Specifically, the outlook for the international trade order became uncertain as Trump’s 2024 election platform included expansive claims about new tariffs. Indeed, on 2 April, 2025, Trump unveiled his long-promised ‘reciprocal’ tariffs strategy, essentially imposing hefty import duties on more than a hundred of countries. However, less than a week after revealing his reciprocal tariffs, Trump adjusted his policy, declaring that countries that had not retaliated would receive a reprieve until July and would only face a blanket US tariff of 10%. At the same time, the tariffs on China were increased even further.
The principal idea behind Trump’s aggressive trade policy is that higher import costs would encourage global manufacturers to re-locate production into the U.S., while also pressuring other nations to buy more U.S. goods, thereby correcting the U.S.’s massive trade deficit. Thus, counties that run large trade surpluses with the U.S. have most to fear and most to lose from these tariffs. Many of these countries are located in South and Southeast Asia (see the table below). For these countries, Trump’s decision to pause the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days has offered a critical window for negotiation.
| Trade balance with the U.S. (million USD) | Share of U.S. imports | After reciprocal tariffs imposed | Total until July | |
| Cambodia | 9,652 | <1% | 49% | 10% |
| China | 359,850 | 13.4% | 34% | negotiations still ongoing |
| India | 42,931 | 2.7% | 26% | 10% |
| Indonesia | 12,638 | <1% | 32% | 10% |
| Laos | -109 | <1% | 48% | 10% |
| Malaysia | 15,744 | 1.6% | 24% | 10% |
| Myanmar | 361 | <1% | 44% | 10% |
| Philippines | 3,276 | <1% | 17% | 10% |
| Singapore | -11,850 | 1.3% | 10% | 10% |
| Thailand | 35,045 | 1.9% | 36% | 10% |
| Vietnam | 103,392 | 4.2% | 46% | 10% |
Source: International Monetary Fund, White House
The negotiations between the U.S. with China commenced and have already yielded some positive results. There is hope among other Asian states that similar productive discussions and agreements to mitigate the impact of the proposed tariffs can follow. The coming weeks are crucial as countries navigate the negotiation period before the 90-day pause expires, seeking to secure more favorable trade conditions with the U.S.
China is a central focus of the U.S. trade policy. In 2024, the total value of goods traded between two countries was approximately $582.4 billion. The U.S. relies heavily on Chinese imports of electronic equipment and machinery, while China primarily imports U.S. mineral fuels, oil seeds, electrical machinery and mechanical appliances. However, the trade balance significantly favors China, which recorded a $360 billion surplus with the U.S. in 2024, according to IMF data.
Last Monday, Donald Trump announced a broad trade deal with Beijing that lowered import taxes on all Chinese goods from 145% to 30%. China, in turn, lowered its tariffs on U.S. imports from 125% to 10%. The reductions will hold for the next 90 days, while the two countries negotiate a longer-term deal. A few days later, the U.S. cut the so-called ‘de minimis’ tariff for low-value shipments from China to as low as 30%. Meanwhile, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it had paused some non-tariff measures taken against 17 U.S. entities put on its unreliable entity list in April and 28 U.S. entities on its export control list.
‘A full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies would have been disastrous for the global market. Thankfully, the officials agreed to de-escalate it quickly. However, we are still not out of the woods yet’, says Kar Yong Ang, a financial market analyst at Octa Broker, adding that a long-term trade agreement between China and the U.S. is yet to be finalized and that markets are being a bit too optimistic right now. ‘Let’s not forget that Trump tried to renegotiate a trade deal with China during his 1st term, but the talks failed in 2019 despite the fact that there was agreement in principle. And I personally believe that the markets are a bit too optimistic about the prospects for a grand deal this time’.
Indeed, U.S. equity indices have recovered swiftly following the decision to de-escalate, but the rally may not last. ‘It would not take much for the bearish sentiment to reemerge. Although tariffs have been lowered, the existing tariffs are still doing damage to the global economy. U.S. inflation is likely to pick up in the months ahead and that would prevent the Federal Reserve (Fed) from delivering on anticipated rate cuts, which may trigger a major selloff in equities’, comments Kar Yong Ang. Either way, other Asian countries are monitoring the progress carefully and are also engaged in active discussions with the U.S. officials.
Vietnam faces duties of 46% on its exports to the U.S. if a reduction cannot be negotiated before a global moratorium expires in July. As a major export-reliant industrial hub, to where numerous companies have relocated (not least in order to lower their exposure to China), Vietnam runs the second-largest trade surplus with the U.S. among Asian countries. It is, therefore, unsurprising, that the two countries began informal talks to avoid tariffs well before Trump announced global reciprocal duties on 2 April. Among the issues discussed are the reduction of Vietnam’s big trade surplus, the fight against trade fraud such as illegal transshipments, the lowering of tariff and non-tariff barriers for U.S. businesses and enhanced protection of intellectual property, including the fight against counterfeits and digital piracy.
‘Vietnam stands to lose a lot should trade talks fail. Companies like Apple, Nike, and Samsung Electronics have large manufacturing operations in the country and may consider leaving altogether if a 46% duty is introduced. I think Vietnamese authorities will do their best to achieve a trade deal with the U.S.’, commented Kar Yong Ang.
Indeed, just a few days ago, Vietnam News Agency reported that Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered a one-month intensive campaign to crack down on smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeit goods. Previously, the news surfaced that the Trump Organization was partnering with Vietnam on potential investments in hotel, real estate and golf course projects possibly worth billions of dollars.
According to the WorldBank, the U.S. is Vietnam’s largest export market with a share of at least 30% and more than $110 billion worth of shipments.
Thailand faces duties of 36% on its exports to the U.S. According to the Bangkok Post, Thai government had said that it would increase imports of U.S. goods, such as corn, soybean meal, crude, ethane, liquified natural gas, autos and electronics to reduce its bilateral trade surplus. In addition, the government submitted a separate trade proposal to the U.S., which included 5 to 6 key points. Last Monday, the head of Thailand Trade Representatives met with U.S. senators, congressional leaders, and major American companies, in a bid to reaffirm Thailand’s role as a key investor in the country and explore joint Thai-U.S. manufacturing.
‘Thailand has clearly taken the trade matters quite seriously despite its relatively small trade surplus. There are good chances that a final agreement could be reached before global pause expires in July’, commented Kar Yong Ang.
According to the WorldBank, the U.S. is Thailand’s largest export market with a share of at least 16% and more than $50 billion worth of shipments.
Malaysia faces duties of 24% on its exports to the U.S. However, Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Malaysia’s Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry, recently said that he was ‘optimistic‘ for a trade agreement with the U.S. within a 90-day period. He visited the U.S. at the end of April and was fully committed to resolving the differences. ‘All communication lines remain open and we will continue to work towards an amicable solution to this reciprocal tariff matter’, Tengku Zafrul Aziz said.
‘It seems like the Forex market shares the trade minister’s optimism. The Malaysian ringgit has been strengthening lately. USDMYR may potentially drop below 4.240 if a trade deal is struck’, commented Kar Yong Ang.
According to the WorldBank, United States is Malaysia’s third largest export market with a share of at least 11% and more than $40 billion worth of shipments.
Indonesia plans to “narrow” or even eliminate its trade surplus with the U.S. by importing more agricultural products such as wheat, soybeans and corn from the U.S. Overall, Indonesia’s reaction to Trump tariffs has been rather muted probably because exports to the U.S. account for just around 2% of Indonesia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Moreover, Indonesia’s exports are relatively well diversified and although the U. S. is an important export destination, its share is relatively minor.
According to the WorldBank, the U.S. is Indonesia’s second largest export market with a share of at least 10% and more than $30 billion worth of shipments.
On balance, Asian nations find themselves in a crucial period, actively negotiating with the U.S. to mitigate the impact of potential tariffs. While the progress achieved during the U.S.-China talks offers some hope, the diverse situations and negotiating stances of countries like Vietnam, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia highlight the complexity of reaching widespread agreements. As Octa Broker analysts suggest, the optimism surrounding these trade discussions should be tempered with the understanding that lasting resolutions remain uncertain, and market reactions may be premature.
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Octa
Octa is an international CFD broker that has been providing online trading services worldwide since 2011. It offers commission-free access to financial markets and various services used by clients from 180 countries who have opened more than 52 million trading accounts. To help its clients reach their investment goals, Octa offers free educational webinars, articles, and analytical tools.
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In Southeast Asia, Octa received the ‘Best Trading Platform Malaysia 2024’ and the ‘Most Reliable Broker Asia 2023’ awards from Brands and Business Magazine and International Global Forex Awards, respectively.
Media OutReach
SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026 Officially Launches in Kuala Lumpur, Highlighting Shifts in Global Semiconductor Supply Chains
The official ceremony underscores Southeast Asia’s growing role in the global semiconductor value chain through collaboration, innovation and ecosystem-wide partnerships
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach Newswire – 5 May 2026 – SEMICON Southeast Asia (SEMICON SEA) 2026 was officially launched today at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC), bringing together policymakers, manufacturers, suppliers, researchers, investors and emerging talent from across the global semiconductor ecosystem for three days of industry dialogue, technology showcases and business engagement.
The opening ceremony was officiated by YB Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI), and attended by SEMI leadership, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) led by the Chief Executive Officer Datuk Sikh Shamsul Ibrahim Sikh Abdul Majid, and senior executives from global semiconductor companies.
Held under the theme ‘Transform Tomorrow’ in strategic partnership with MITI and MIDA, SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026 is expected to welcome more than 20,000 innovators, policymakers and technology experts. The three-day event focuses on key industry priorities including manufacturing scale-up, advanced packaging, intelligent manufacturing and workforce development, as companies respond to demand driven by artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and advanced electronics.
Datuk Sikh Shamsul Ibrahim Sikh Abdul Majid, Chief Executive Officer of MIDA, said Malaysia is approaching the next phase of semiconductor growth as an active builder rather than a beneficiary of global trends.
“The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point, and Malaysia intends to be at the centre of what comes next. Under the MADANI Economy Framework and the New Industrial Master Plan 2030, we are not simply maintaining our position in the global semiconductor supply chain, we are deliberately reshaping it. The NIMP 2030 sets a clear direction for the E&E sector to move beyond assembly and test into design, advanced packaging and innovation-driven manufacturing, and MIDA is here to make that transition real. The RM28.5 billion secured by the E&E sector in 2025 is proof that global confidence in Malaysia has not wavered. What we are now building is the ecosystem to match that confidence, through supply chain integration, local capability development and the kind of high-value partnerships that platforms like SEMICON Southeast Asia are uniquely placed to catalyse,” said Datuk Sikh Shamsul Ibrahim.
“SEMI’s role has always been to bring together the global semiconductor ecosystem, and that responsibility becomes even more important as the industry grows in scale and complexity. Today, innovation is no longer confined to a single segment. It requires closer alignment across design, manufacturing, materials and supply chains. SEMICON Southeast Asia provides a platform to bridge these different parts of the ecosystem, enabling stakeholders to engage in more meaningful collaboration and move from discussion to execution,” said Ajit Manocha, President and CEO of SEMI.
“As demand continues to be driven by artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and advanced electronics, the ability to coordinate across regions and capabilities will be critical. SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026 is not only about showcasing technology, but about strengthening the partnerships needed to support long-term industry growth and resilience.”
The event features key leadership programmes including the Executive Leadership Summit, MIDA Strategic Semiconductor Forum and Seminar, Sustainability and Energy Summit, TechZoomers Challenge and TalentCONNECT, reflecting SEMICON Southeast Asia’s role not only as an exhibition platform, but as a convening point for leadership, capability and execution across the region’s semiconductor ecosystem.
Marking over a decade of strategic collaboration, MIDA and SEMI today reinforce 12 years of a transformative partnership dedicated to elevating Malaysia’s standing in the global semiconductor value chain. This enduring alliance remains anchored on three core pillars designed to future-proof the nation’s industrial landscape:
- Ecosystem Integration: Harmonising domestic and international supply chains to ensure seamless operational synergy.
- Enterprise Capability: Empowering local businesses to scale their technical expertise and compete on a global stage.
- Talent Advancement: Cultivating a high-skilled workforce as the essential bedrock of Malaysia’s long-term economic resilience and competitive edge.
SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026 runs from 5–7 May 2026 at MITEC, Kuala Lumpur, with participation from companies and organisations across Asia, the United States and Europe.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About MIDA
MIDA is the government’s principal investment promotion and development agency under the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) to oversee and drive investments into the manufacturing and services sectors in Malaysia. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur Sentral, MIDA has 12 regional and 20 overseas offices. MIDA partners with investors at every stage of their journey, supporting sustainable growth and long-term value creation for Malaysia. For more information, please visit www.mida.gov.my and follow MIDA on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube.
About SEMI
SEMI® is the global industry association connecting over 4,000-member companies and 1.5 million professionals worldwide across the semiconductor and electronics design and manufacturing supply chain. We accelerate member collaboration on solutions to top industry challenges through Advocacy, Workforce Development, Sustainability, Supply Chain Management and other programs. Our SEMICON® expositions and events, technology communities, standards and market intelligence help advance our members’ business growth and innovations in design, devices, equipment, materials, services and software, enabling smarter, faster, more secure electronics. Visit www.semi.org, contact a regional office, and connect with SEMI on 
LinkedIn and 
X to learn more.
Media OutReach
TrendAI™ and Anthropic Advance AI-Powered Vulnerability Detection and Risk Mitigation with Claude Opus 4.7
Collaboration bridges gap between vulnerability discovery and real-world risk reduction
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 5 May 2026 – TrendAI™, the enterprise AI security leader from Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), today announced a collaboration with Anthropic to support the expanded deployment of Claude Opus 4.7 for security research. Through this collaboration, organizations can reduce real-world risk faster: leveraging AI-accelerated threat intelligence to identify, prioritize, and mitigate exploitable vulnerabilities before they impact the business.
TrendAI™ is participating in Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program, which provides credentials to engage in the defensive use of frontier AI models.
Rachel Jin, Chief Platform and Business Officer, Head of TrendAI™: “AI is dramatically accelerating vulnerability discovery, but remediation timelines haven’t kept pace. Our collaboration with Anthropic ensures that organizations get the best vulnerability threat intelligence and the ability to reduce risk across their environments before attacks take place.”
TrendAI™ launched AESIR (AI-Enhanced Security, Intelligence, and Research), an AI-powered internal security research platform that combines machine-speed automation with human expert oversight, in 2025. AESIR uses Claude Opus 4.7 to reason like an attacker, determining what’s reachable, what’s controllable, and what’s exploitable across complex software ecosystems. At scale, this means autonomously discovering and proving real vulnerabilities. TrendAI Vision One™ builds on these insights by prioritizing, mapping attack paths, and enabling swift mitigation—including virtual patching—across hybrid environments.
TrendAI™ is operating at the intersection of the two most critical dynamics in cybersecurity today: the AI models driving the new threat landscape, and the AI-powered defenses needed to match them. AESIR has already uncovered and, with ZDI, collaborated on patching for critical CVEs across industry-leading AI platforms including NVIDIA, Tencent, agentic frameworks, and MCP tooling.. The TrendAI State of AI Security Report projects between 2,800 and 3,600 AI CVEs in 2026 alone; AESIR was built precisely to operate at that scale.
To learn more about how TrendAI™ is advancing AI-powered security, visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_hk/research/26/a/aesir.html
The collaboration between TrendAI™ and Anthropic pushes the industry forward by combining AI-driven code intelligence and real-world risk prioritization. The ability to determine which vulnerabilities pose real-world risk, prioritize them, and mitigate them before they are exploited has become critical. With TrendAI Vision One™, organizations can operationalize findings by determining asset exposure, identifying attack paths, and applying controls like virtual patching and exploit detection. This reduces risk quickly, even when code fixes require more time. This is crucial for production environments, where vulnerabilities are often discovered after deployment.
Hashtag: #trendmicro, #trendvisionone, #visionone, #aisecurity, #anthropic, #ClaudeOpus
https://www.trendaisecurity.com
TrendAI™, the global AI security leader and enterprise business unit of Trend Micro, empowers organizations with full AI visibility and consolidated security that inspires confidence, drives innovation, and eliminates risk. Trusted by the largest enterprises and governments across 185 countries, TrendAI™ secures the entire organization, from identities, to infrastructure, to data. Global Fortune 500 companies rely on TrendAI™ to cut risk and stop threats up to three months earlier, powered by world-leading threat and attack intelligence. AI Fearlessly.
About Anthropic
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company dedicated to building reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. Its Claude family of models, including Claude Opus 4.7, enables advanced capabilities across a wide range of applications, including code understanding and security analysis.
Media OutReach
BIK Behavioural Verification technology as the response to the growing wave of digital fraud in the African financial market
In today’s digital economy, trust has emerged as the most valuable asset, surpassing money as the key currency. The collaboration between BIK and Fair Score Africa unites a robust, well-established security infrastructure developed in Poland with the dynamic growth of African markets, where mobile payments and digital banking are rapidly becoming central to everyday financial transactions. This partnership is focused on the deployment of BIK’s proprietary Behavioural Verification Platform in seven leading African countries: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and Zambia.
The collaborative initiative directly addresses the rapidly expanding issue of financial fraud in Africa’s fast-growing markets, which are home to a population exceeding 427 million. According to the Interpol report Africa Cyberthreat Assessment, published in June 2025, cybercrime now constitutes more than 30% of reported fraud cases in both West and East Africa. Between 2019 and 2025, the continent has suffered financial losses exceeding USD 3 billion as a result of identified cyber incidents.
Security measures relying solely on passwords, one-time SMS codes, and other traditional identity verification methods are no longer sufficient and fail to provide effective protection against increasingly sophisticated threats.
The BIK Behavioural Verification Platform (BVP) is an innovative response to the escalating challenge of digital fraud within the financial sector. Designed to proactively safeguard both individuals and institutions, the BVP leverages advanced behavioural analytics to identify each user’s unique patterns of interaction. By monitoring how customers engage with their devices during online and mobile banking sessions, the platform operates in real time to detect anomalies that may indicate fraudulent activity. This enables the prevention of unauthorized transactions and the submission of credit applications without customer consent, ensuring enhanced protection for all parties involved.
Using state-of-the-art Machine Learning algorithms, the platform continually updates each user’s behavioural profile, adapting dynamically to emerging threats. All data is processed in a context-free manner, strictly adhering to international privacy standards. The BIK Behavioural Verification Platform delivers robust security for end users and supports financial institutions in significantly reducing fraud-related losses across the entire ecosystem.
The BIK solution streamlines institutional anti-fraud operations while maintaining a seamless customer experience. Developed and proven in the Polish financial market, the BIK Behavioural Verification Platform is now emerging as a new standard for digital protection, combining effectiveness, user convenience, and resilience against modern cyber threats. Its adaptable nature enables deployment across international markets, setting a benchmark for security and operational excellence globally.
“Our collaboration with BIK directly responds to a pressing need across the African market, where we are witnessing a swift rise in financial crime, especially through mobile platforms. BIK’s behavioural verification technology offers a crucial enhancement to our security landscape-improving fraud detection without compromising the user experience. We believe this forms the basis for secure and sustainable growth across the region” – says Dr. Danny Zandamela, CEO of Fair Score Africa, and adds:
“We position the partnership with BIK as a long ‑ term commitment, the outcome of which is the ability to provide local financial institutions with a critical technology that protects against the evolving threat landscape across the African continent. In future, it may serve as an authentication layer for national citizen ‑ identification systems through integration with, for example, the Ghana Card or Nigeria’s NIN, which are the respective equivalents of the Polish national identity card” -adds Dr. Zandamela.
“At BIK, we are proud to be building one of the world’s most advanced anti-fraud ecosystems, renowned for its exceptional scope and technological sophistication. By expanding this digital shield to our partners’ markets in Africa, we are not simply sharing technology – we are exporting trust and confidence in the financial sector. By analyzing each customer’s distinctive behavioural patterns, our technology can safeguard their finances even in situations where login credentials have been compromised by cybercriminals. We are demonstrating that cutting-edge technology developed in Poland is fully scalable and ready to protect financial sector clients across continents” – says Mariusz Cholewa, PhD, CEO of BIK, President of ACCIS.
BIK – the only Credit Information Bureau in Poland, member of ACCIS, associating the largest group of credit registers in the world. BIK supports the security of financial institutions and their clients by providing a safe system for exchanging credit and economic information and innovative anti-fraud solutions. The sectoral solutions in BIK portfolio are: BIK Anti-Fraud Platform, Cyber Fraud Detection Platform, Behavioural Verification Platform, ESG BIK Platform. BIK collects and provides data on the credit history of individual customers and entrepreneurs from the entire credit market, as well as data from the area of non-bank loans. BIK possesses the highest competencies in market analysis and modern technologies. It combines the features of a modern technology company with the attributes of a public trust institution.
Fair Score Africa – the company is an innovative FinTech in credit repair, credit re-integration, alternative credit scoring and financial inclusion, developing mobile‑ and behavioural‑data‑driven risk assessment tools that enable the secure scaling of financial services across African markets. Fair Score’s Score Improvement Program is able to improve the credit risk profile of individual consumers through targeted interventions that improve the behaviour of consumers in the credit economy, making them more responsible participants of that arena. In this way, lenders are also able to engage these consumers through a redefined credit risk outlook in their assessments. The Score Improvement Program has recently been awarded as being the Best Credit Assessment Initiative – Africa for 2026 by The Digital Banker in Singapore.
Hashtag: #BIK
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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