Affected by the Iran war, residents in Southeast Asian countries voice their concerns

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Southeast Asian countries are voicing concern about President Trump and the war with Iran.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Southeast Asian countries are meeting this week at a summit in the Philippines. One of the big topics - the U.S. war on Iran. Michael Sullivan reports from Thailand.

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MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Krabi is a tourist destination of seemingly endless beaches on the glittering Andaman Sea, a place not used to seeing its airport suddenly hosting U.S. military aircraft.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Thai).

SULLIVAN: Last month, though, that changed for a few days, at least, with U.S. planes arriving day and night, alarming locals whose videos of the arrivals were quickly splashed across national TV newscasts.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Thai).

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SULLIVAN: Social media was filled with posts from Thais worried they were getting dragged into a war with Iran they wanted no part of. The Thai military was quick to assure people the planes were a one-off, a stopgap measure after overcrowding at a nearby military airport used for yearly joint exercises with the U.S.

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SULLIVAN: Thailand depends on the Strait of Hormuz for roughly half its energy needs. But gas prices are up and tourist arrivals are down as political uncertainty and the price of jet fuel have soared. And even before the war started, a survey of more than 2,000 of Southeast Asia's regional elite by Singapore's Yusof Ishak Institute identified President Trump by name as the biggest geopolitical threat to regional security.

SHAHRIMAN LOCKMAN: It's really shocking.

SULLIVAN: Shahriman Lockman is a senior researcher at Malaysia's Institute of Strategic & International Studies.

LOCKMAN: Trump has really made it very easy to basically blame America for a lot of things.

SULLIVAN: Especially after his stiff tariffs on Southeast Asian trading partners over the past year or so, some of whom, such as Indonesia and Malysia, were already angry about U.S. support for Israel in the war in Gaza. This war and its fallout isn't helping, says Yun Sun at the Stimson Center.

YUN SUN: Countries in the region are starting to feel the energy shortage. They're also facing the shortage of raw materials.

SULLIVAN: Aries Arugay is a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.

ARIES ARUGAY: The U.S. doesn't seem to even be sensitive to the impact of its unilateral actions to some of its Southeast Asian partners, including allies.

SULLIVAN: But not all its Southeast Asian partners. In the Philippines, for example, Washington and Manila are winding up their annual Balikatan war games this week, which are clearly focused on China. And in the end, says Shahriman Lockman, China's growing military and economic influence in the region may trump ASEAN nations concerns about President Trump.

LOCKMAN: They may not love Trump. They may not love the current administration. But America is inconveniently vital for all of us.

SULLIVAN: And while China has been using the war to tout itself as a benevolent and responsible partner, says the Stimson Center's Yun Sun...

SUN: China, since the beginning of the war, has also put a export restriction on, for example, diesel, on gas and also on fertilizers because China want to reserve those supplies for China's own economic consumption.

SULLIVAN: Which sounds a whole lot like President Trump's America First and may help explain why some survey respondents see Trump as a threat but also still see the U.S. as a more trusted partner, though the gap is narrowing.

For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Chiang Rai.

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