To many in Asia, the United States’ inward turn is alarming. Under President Donald J. Trump, the US seems to be pursuing policies undermining the global liberal order. In the president’s zero-sum thinking, the international order must no longer be useful now that countries other than the US are benefitting more from it. Needless to say, unilateral changes to an international order that continues to predicate Asia’s economic rise can only threaten national interests across the region.

In response, to no one’s surprise, popular opinion in Asia has soured as leadership in the US changed hands. As the Pew Research Center found, confidence that the US under Trump, in contrast to under Barack Obama, would do the ‘right thing’ internationally has dropped precipitously in Japan (-54%), South Korea (-71%), Vietnam (-13%), and the Philippines (-25%). Add China to the list, and you have all the countries Trump has visited in the past two weeks.

However, Southeast Asia remains ready to engage the US, as it always has. The main problem in US-Southeast Asia relations is the divergence between rhetoric and substantive progress. Under President Trump, the United States is sending out confusing and conflicting messages: What is ‘fairness’ in terms of trade balance? Must a country sustain a prolonged trade deficit just to stay in the good graces of the US? Will the US honor its commitments? Will the US be there in Southeast Asia’s hour of need?

US presence at this year’s APEC and ASEAN summits in Danang and Manila, respectively, is a good start but what really matters is, as our first Spotlight opinion article puts it, economic ‘boots on the ground’. China comes up with the Belt and Road Initiative to tie the region closer to it; the US steps back from Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. President Trump’s administration says it seeks a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’, but how does the US plan to bring it about? President Obama, too, claimed a ‘pivot to Asia’ but US policy attention rarely budged from the Middle East in reality. What’s different now?

The reserves of good will that the US keeps in Asia are running low. As our second Spotlight opinion articles points out, even Filipinos, traditionally among the most pro-American in Southeast Asia, have a list of issues they want addressed, as President Trump attends the ASEAN summit in Manila this week. It will take more than a US presidential visit to East Asia to refill those reserves of good will.