Jakarta. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently defended President Donald Trump’s tariff letters sent to ASEAN leaders, saying that Washington was only seeking a trade rebalancing and would remain open for negotiations.

Trump’s top diplomat had just wrapped up his foreign ministerial meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts in Kuala Lumpur, which took place after Trump had fired off letters to world leaders early this week, informing them of their new tariff rates that will enter into force next month.

President Prabowo Subianto was one of those who received the first batch of the poorly formatted letters, as Indonesia is now set to face 32 percent tariffs unless Jakarta makes concessions on trade. Current ASEAN chair Malaysia now has to deal with a looming 25 percent tariff, marking a single point increase from the duty hikes that Trump had announced in April. 

During a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Rubio said every country would get a letter, for the most part, on Trump’s wish for fair trade.

“President [Trump] has been clear for 30 years, even before he was in politics, that he felt that the status of global trade was unfair to American workers and the American economy. This is an effort to rebalance that at a global scale,” Rubio said, as seen in a US Department of State transcript.

“When all is said and done, many of the countries in Southeast Asia are going to have tariff rates that are actually better than countries in other parts of the world, and it could be a benefit.”

Rubio admitted that foreign ministers from every part of the world had raised concerns over the tariffs, but had told them that there was still room for negotiations.

“At the end of the day, this is about a rebalancing of our trade relationship. Different countries have different rates based on the status of our trade. There is always the opportunity to negotiate. We have seen that with Vietnam already,” he said.

The American envoy also hinted that Washington would strike some new tariff deals with "several other countries over time" without providing any details.

In ASEAN, Myanmar and Laos are getting the short end of the stick, both charged a 40 percent tariff, according to Trump’s latest letters. But the levies are lower than the 44 percent rate that Myanmar was supposed to get. Laos, too, originally had to face a 48 percent tariff on its US-bound goods.

The latest tariff rates for the other ASEAN countries are also as follows: Thailand 36 percent, Cambodia 36 percent, Brunei Darussalam 25 percent, Vietnam 20 percent, and the Philippines 20 percent. Vietnam managed to dodge the 46 percent levy announced in April, and had it dropped to just 20 percent. Trump, however, will have a 40 percent import tax in place for Vietnamese goods transhipped from third countries.

Singapore has yet to receive a letter, but will still be subject to the baseline 10 percent tariffs.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono tried to bring the Kuala Lumpur forum’s attention to the need for fair trade, but avoided direct mention of Trump’s tariffs.

“ASEAN hopes the US will continue to support an open, fair, and mutually beneficial trade, including through existing mechanisms such as the ASEAN-US Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement [TIFA],” Sugiono said.

The TIFA is a framework signed in 2006 to define the bloc’s economic engagement with the US. In that document, both the US and all ASEAN countries agreed to consider ways to enhance trade. The US government reported that American goods trade with ASEAN totaled $476.8 billion in 2024. The US ran a $227.7 billion deficit, up 11.6 percent year-on-year. 

Chief Economic Minister  Airlangga Hartarto has traveled to Washington for another round of talks, shortly after Trump’s fresh tariff threat. Airlangga reported that both sides had agreed to engage in intense talks over the coming weeks. State-run energy firm Pertamina has also signed some memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with American business partners such as ExxonMobil and Chevron as a sweetener in the negotiations.