For anyone who has been following U.S.-Southeast Asia relations over the past eighteen months, and especially since the onset of the Iran war, these results should not be surprising. Even before Trump took office, U.S. popularity had plummeted in parts of Southeast Asia—particularly Malaysia and Indonesia—because of the United States’ handling of the Gaza war. Indeed, even Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who has close personal ties with many U.S. opinion leaders (including myself and others at CFR) and was once affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, had become publicly critical of the United States, probably reflecting broader Malaysian views.
The region has only become angrier with Washington in the last year, following the Trump administration hitting Southeast Asian exporters—and even close Indo-Pacific allies such as Australia—with tough tariffs (many of which have now been nullified by the Supreme Court). The tariffs, whose size seemed to fluctuate depending on factors hard for regional states to understand, made negotiations with Washington difficult, hurt the regional business environment, and demonstrated inconsistent support for regional partners.
The 2026 survey was conducted before the Iran war, and it reveals regional sentiments only heightened by that conflict. Malaysia’s Anwar has strongly condemned the strikes on Iran, a sentiment shared by many other Southeast Asian opinion leaders, particularly in Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. For other Southeast Asian leaders and populaces, the fury at Washington stems in greater part from the fact that the war has left Asia, more than any other region, in a dire energy crisis.
As the region most dependent on Persian Gulf oil and liquified natural gas (LNG), Asia is struggling to avoid running out of fuel, a real possibility in the coming weeks in poorer states like Bangladesh. For much of South and Southeast Asia, LNG was supposed to be the fuel that helped reduce dependence on oil, but the region is realizing that LNG, too, can be held up in the Strait of Hormuz or simply because of damage to critical operations in Qatar.
Several Asian states are panicking and blaming the United States, which did not consult with them or major allies like Australia or Japan, before the war. Countries have imposed austerity measures, tried to cushion the blow with subsidies, shortened workweeks, and, in the Philippines, declared a national emergency. States are reopening shuttered coal plants, planning for nuclear energy expansion, and clearly worrying that public anger could mount into widespread unrest.
China is benefiting from Southeast and South Asian anger and shock at the Iran war, even though Beijing itself, which long promised greater regional energy cooperation, is actually doing little to help its neighbors right now. Facing slower domestic growth and major economic challenges, China has made sure to shore up its own energy supply, which is already in better shape than its neighbors’ because of its investments in renewables, its ability to still access some Iranian oil, and its sizable petroleum reserve. Beijing has banned petroleum exports, as well as fertilizer exports.
Countries across South and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Thailand, have begged China to reconsider but have mostly been met with vague or no responses. “China may offer some ceremonial assistance, but it’s highly unlikely, if not wholly improbable, that it will share any substantive amount of its food, energy or other reserves with other countries,” Eric Olander, cofounder of the China-Global South Project, said in a Reuters report. Yet with so much disappointment and fury in Southeast Asia toward the White House, China’s own lack of assistance has mostly gotten a pass.
This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.