Perry World House Hosts Future of Security in the Indo-Pacific Workshop

As the Trump administration seeks to develop its national security and defense strategies, eyes are on how Washington will interact with the vast Indo-Pacific region. Regional actors are interested in the future of minilateral groupings like the Australia-UK-U.S. trilateral security partnership (AUKUS) and the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. security alliance (the Quad), how tariffs will be implemented against allies and adversaries alike, Trump’s vision for conventional and non-conventional deterrence, and the future of the Philippines’ push against the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea, among other topics.

On April 9 and 10, 2025, in part due to the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York, Perry World House hosted leading experts, scholars, and practitioners—including PWH Distinguished Visiting Fellows Mara Karlin and Antonio Carpio and Wolk Visiting Fellow Richard Fontaine—to discuss these issues and more. In a keynote program, Fontaine and moderator Amy Gadsden, Penn’s associate vice provost for global initiatives, discussed the history U.S. pivot to Asia and what the future holds for the region under Trump.