From Bloomberg, February 12, 2025:
As Trump begins his second term as president, the next four years are unlikely to pass quietly for the region’s corporate titans
Half a world away from Washington, Asia’s corporate titans are coming to grips with the new, or perhaps all too familiar, reality of Donald J. Trump.
Just weeks into his second term as US president, Trump has already rattled the globe with diplomatic broadsides, the threat of sweeping tariffs and more — an indication that both his way of governing and the fallout from it remain just as forceful and unpredictable.
Only one thing seems certain: the next four years are unlikely to pass quietly for Asia’s richest families.
“It’s going to be chaotic, it’s going to be capricious, it’s going to be idiosyncratic,” says Nirmalya Kumar, a professor of marketing at Singapore Management University.
A couple of them — Hong Kong’s Kwok family (No. 5 on the list) and the Kweks from Singapore and Malaysia (No. 15) — crossed paths with Trump when he was seeking a buyer for New York’s Plaza Hotel in the 1990s, decades before his first term. The interactions took some unexpected, and in retrospect, comedic turns, before the Kweks ultimately bought the hotel together with a Saudi royal.
The Chengs (No. 12) once helped rescue Trump from financial difficulty by buying a swath of land on Manhattan’s Hudson River shore together with other wealthy investors. Today, the Cheng clan, which controls one of Hong Kong’s biggest property dynasties, is being rocked by its own crisis of confidence. Its firm, New World Development Co., is contending with debt restructuring concerns and plummeting bond prices.
The biggest question hanging over Asia’s rich is how sweeping and long-lasting Trump’s tariffs — and retaliatory duties imposed by other governments — will be. The Zhang family (No. 11), who founded aluminum-producer China Hongqiao Group, and the Lees (No. 10) of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., may both be at risk in case these measures drag on.
Tariffs would help accelerate the “China Plus One” trend by re-directing foreign investment to Southeast Asia, according to Maybank Securities. The food-production arm of CP Group, founded by Thailand’s Chearavanont family (No. 2), is among the likely winners, the bank said.
Kumar sees other risks ahead: tariffs might further dent China’s decelerating economy, which may strengthen the dollar. And Trump’s economic nationalism might spur other countries to curtail their dependency on China and others.
On the upside, Asian conglomerates tend to be diversified and have broad swaths that are closely held, he says, which gives some insulation from fickle market swings.
Among India’s billionaires there are hopefuls betting that Trump’s suspicious view of China and warm relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be a boon. Several issued congratulatory statements shortly after the election was called.
“We congratulate President-Elect Trump on his historic victory,” wrote Kumar Birla (No. 9), chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, which has big interests in cement, iron ore and aluminum production.
Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, who’s facing US charges over alleged corruption, called Trump “the embodiment of unbreakable tenacity, unshakeable grit, relentless determination.” (Adani, a first-generation tycoon who isn’t on Bloomberg’s dynastic-specific ranking, has denied the charges.)
Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani (No. 1) and his wife Nita attended Trump’s inauguration.
How should Asia’s richest prepare for the second term? They need a Trump whisperer, Kumar says: Someone who can parse policy from the bluster.
“You need a window into Trump’s mind,” he says — as evident by the string of billionaires who’ve traveled to Florida to meet the president. “I suggest they make a trip to Mar-a-Lago and book a room.”....
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