What trade deals or memoranda of understanding did the U.S. negotiate with Indo-Pacific countries during and after the Trump era?

1. Trump-era concrete moves: renegotiation and withdrawal, not many new FTAs

President Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans‑Pacific Partnership shortly after taking office in 2017 and focused instead on renegotiating existing pacts, most notably the Korea‑U.S. (KORUS) agreement which was revised and went into effect in its renegotiated form on January 1, 2019 ^[1]. Beyond KORUS, reporting notes that the Trump administration touted new or reworked bilateral outcomes with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam as part of a more transactional U.S. approach in Asia, but did not produce a new, comprehensive regional free‑trade treaty akin to the original TPP ^{[6] [1]}.

2. The Biden pivot: IPEF as a framework, not a tariff‑cutting FTA

In May 2022 the Biden administration launched the Indo‑Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) with 14 partners — including Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and others — explicitly as a framework to negotiate on Trade, Supply Chains, Clean Economy, and Tax/Anti‑Corruption rather than a traditional free trade agreement providing tariff cuts and market‑access guarantees ^{[3] [2]}. U.S. agencies later reported that IPEF partners substantially concluded negotiations on the supply‑chain pillar in May 2023 and on the clean economy and fair economy pillars in November 2023, while emphasizing regulatory cooperation and standards rather than enforceable market‑access commitments ^{[7] [3]}.

3. Sectoral “mini‑deals,” bilateral MOUs and executive‑level pacts

Alongside IPEF, the Biden administration pursued “mini‑deals” and bilateral memoranda aimed at targeted areas — supply chains for critical technologies, infrastructure and clean‑energy partnerships, and cooperation on tax and anti‑corruption — which are often executive agreements or memoranda rather than congressional trade treaties ^{[4] [7]}. U.S. trade and commerce agencies expanded on‑the‑ground work — new commercial offices, trade missions and Clean EDGE initiatives — to catalyze deals and investments in the region without the blunt instrument of a full FTA ^{[8] [9]}.

4. Where market‑access was limited and politics mattered

Multiple analysts and reporting warned that IPEF’s design deliberately avoided the enforceable market‑access rules typical of free trade agreements, a political choice reflecting domestic resistance and partner hesitation on binding labor, environmental and digital trade rules — an outcome that critics say sacrifices tangible trade gains for normative or strategic cooperation ^{[5] [10]}. Observers also note the underlying agenda: the United States seeks to offer a strategic economic alternative to China while protecting supply chains and sensitive technologies, which steers outcomes toward industrial policy and standards rather than tariff liberalization ^{[4] [5]}.

5. The practical landscape: a mix of longstanding FTAs and new agreements

Despite the shift in strategy, the United States still has longstanding free trade agreements in the Indo‑Pacific — with Australia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan (and historically the Philippines via earlier arrangements), while newer engagements and tariff‑related understandings with countries like Indonesia have been negotiated at the executive level in the post‑Trump period as part of bilateral frameworks and tariff deals ^{[1] [6] [11]}. Official U.S. accounts emphasize billions in trade and investment ties and administrative tools to deepen commercial engagement, even as the region signs scores of other bilateral and regional pacts without U.S. participation ^{[12] [8] [1]}.