Sharp perspectives on the issues shaping Southeast Asia

BY TENGKU NOOR SHAMSIAH TENGKU ABDULLAH

Column No. 5 — 21 April 2026 — TNS News

The Strait Opens and Closes Again: ASEAN Braces as the Ceasefire Teeters

For 48 hours last Friday, the world dared to believe the worst was over. Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open, oil prices fell more than 10 percent, and stock markets surged. Then, over the weekend, the United States Navy seized an Iranian cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman, Iran reimposed its restrictions on the waterway, and the two-week ceasefire that expires this Wednesday lurched toward collapse.

As Southeast Asia enters its 52nd day of the energy crisis, the region faces the same unresolved question it has confronted since late February: how to build resilience in a world where the next disruption may already be in motion.

On 17 April, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the passage of all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz was “declared completely open” for the remaining period of the ceasefire, linked to a separate 10-day Israel-Lebanon truce announced the previous day. Brent crude fell more than 10 percent on the news. Global equities rallied.

The relief, however, lasted less than 48 hours.

On Sunday 20 April, the US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance intercepted the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel M/V Touska in the Gulf of Oman, fired on its engine room, and seized the ship after the crew declined multiple warnings to halt. President Donald Trump announced the seizure on Truth Social, stating the Touska had attempted to bypass the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Iran called the action “armed piracy” and vowed retaliation.

Within hours, Iran had reimposed its restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices reversed sharply: West Texas Intermediate futures jumped more than 6 percent to USD 89 per barrel, while Brent climbed 5.6 percent to USD 95.50. Only 16 ships traversed the strait on Monday, according to vessel-tracking data, compared with the roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day that passed through it before the war.

The ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan and announced on 8 April, expires on Wednesday 22 April Washington time. President Trump told Bloomberg News it is “highly unlikely” he will extend it if no deal is reached.

The US delegation expected to include Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — is preparing for a second round of talks in Islamabad.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday there was “no plan for a second round of negotiations with the US for now,” though it has not formally closed the door.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation at the first round of talks on 12 April, was unambiguous:

“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot.”

Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context, told CNBC on 20 April that Saturday had been the most violent day in the strait since the beginning of the crisis and that conditions showed no sign of improvement.

“While we keep getting these sell-offs and it keeps seeming like we’re about to finally get that football,” he said, “Lucy pulls it away — and we’re back to where we started.”

The first round of Islamabad talks on 12 April had already ended without agreement after 21 hours of negotiations.

Washington demanded an indefinite end to Iranian uranium enrichment, a condition Tehran flatly rejected as a violation of national sovereignty. Iran’s position that it retains the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes has not shifted.

Neither has the US position on the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington insists must be permanently open and free of Iranian tolls.

The fundamental gap between the two delegations has not narrowed.

As Alan Eyre, a former member of the US team that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal, has noted: until the US negotiating team abandons the belief that military victory equates to strategic dominance, a solution remains elusive.

THE IMF VERDICT: NO RETURN TO NORMAL

Against this backdrop of resumed confrontation, the International Monetary Fund delivered its most sobering assessment yet of the war’s economic consequences.

In its April 2026 World Economic Outlook, released last week, the IMF cut its global growth forecast to 3.1 percent for 2026, down from a pre-conflict projection of 3.4 percent.

Global inflation is now expected to reach 4.4 percent.

Critically, even this relatively modest revision rests on an assumption that the conflict is short-lived.

In the IMF’s adverse scenario, global growth falls to 2.5 percent.

In the severe scenario — where supply disruptions persist into 2027 — global growth would decline to 2 percent, which the IMF described as “a close call for a global recession.”

Growth has fallen below 2 percent only four times since 1980.

IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas was explicit about the arithmetic: even if the war ended today and the strait reopened tomorrow, the world would still face an oil shortfall for the year.

“If everything were to stop tonight,” he told CNN, “we would still be looking at an oil shortfall for the year.”

The damage is already embedded in the supply chain.

More than 500 million barrels of crude and condensate have been removed from the global market since 28 February, according to Kpler data.

Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex, struck on 18 and 19 March, lost 17 percent of its LNG export capacity.

Repairs are estimated to take between three and five years, constrained not by funding but by supply chains for specialised equipment that only five manufacturers worldwide can produce.

For ASEAN, the IMF figures translate directly into reduced fiscal space, higher inflation and strained central banks.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, set its 2026 fuel subsidy budget on an assumed oil price of USD 70 per barrel.

With Brent trading near USD 95 and subject to reversal at any moment, the gap between budget assumptions and market reality is structurally damaging.

The Indonesian government has allocated 381 trillion rupiah — approximately USD 22.5 billion — for fuel subsidies.

Analysts at Carnegie Endowment have warned that at current price levels the budget deficit could breach the legally permissible threshold of 3 percent of GDP.

That would be the second such emergency override since the COVID-19 pandemic.

ISEAS SURVEY: A REGION THAT WANTS AUTONOMY, NOT ALIGNMENT

Amid the economic turbulence, the annual State of Southeast Asia survey published by the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute on 7 April offers the clearest reading yet of how the region’s strategic perceptions are shifting.

Conducted between 5 January and 20 February 2026 before Operation Epic Fury began and drawing on 2,008 respondents across all 11 ASEAN member states, including Timor-Leste for the first time, the survey found that 52 percent of respondents would align with China if forced to choose between Beijing and Washington, compared with 48 percent for the United States.

The margin is narrow.

The region remains broadly divided rather than decisively tilted.

What is decisive is the direction.

China led in the 2024 survey, the US recovered in 2025, and China has returned to the top position in 2026.

The driver is not admiration for Beijing but anxiety about Washington.

US President Donald Trump’s leadership was named as the region’s top geopolitical concern by 51.9 percent of respondents — narrowly ahead of global scam operations at 51.4 percent and aggressive South China Sea behaviour at 48.2 percent.

Among respondents expressing distrust of the United States, the primary reason cited was fear that American economic and military power could be used to threaten their country’s specific interests and sovereignty.

That concern has only grown more concrete in the seven weeks since the survey closed.

Yet the survey’s most important finding may be the one that resists easy geopolitical framing.

55.2 percent of respondents favour stronger ASEAN unity to resist major power pressure.

Only 6.9 percent support allowing each member state to choose its own approach.

Southeast Asia does not want to be absorbed into either orbit.

It wants the institutional architecture to protect its room for manoeuvre.

The question the current crisis poses is whether ASEAN is building that architecture fast enough.

“Southeast Asia remains deeply concerned with intensifying major power rivalry. The findings point to a region that is increasingly cautious and determined to preserve room for manoeuvre in a contested strategic landscape.” ISEAS State of Southeast Asia 2026 Survey

An analyst commenting for TNS News, has observed that the ISEAS findings capture a structural condition that predates the Iran war and will outlast it.

The combination of US tariff unpredictability, Washington’s military adventurism and Beijing’s sustained economic engagement has steadily shifted the region’s hedging calculus.

The analyst has noted in TNS News commentary that the economic dimension of the ISEAS shift is at least as consequential as the diplomatic one.

With the Iran war adding a major energy shock on top of existing tariff pressures, the region’s supply chains are reconfiguring in ways that further entrench China’s role as the dominant regional economic node.

THE CLOCK IS RUNNING

As this column goes to print, the ceasefire expires in less than 48 hours.

The seizure of the Touska has introduced a new flashpoint.

Iran has reimposed strait restrictions.

The second round of Islamabad talks has no confirmed Iranian participation.

Trump has said extension is highly unlikely.

The IMF has warned that even a rapid resolution leaves an oil shortfall for the year.

The IEA’s April report confirms that physical crude near USD 150 per barrel and Singapore middle distillate prices above USD 290 per barrel represent a market that has not begun to recover.

For Southeast Asia, the diplomatic calendar continues regardless of what happens on Wednesday.

The 48th ASEAN Summit is scheduled in Cebu in May.

The South China Sea Code of Conduct retains its July target.

The DEFA digital economy framework targets a November signing.

These are not abstractions.

They are the institutional infrastructure through which ASEAN is supposed to exercise the collective autonomy that 55.2 percent of its own opinion leaders say they want.

The challenge now is to ensure that the urgency of the past 52 days is converted into durable structural reform before the next crisis removes that choice entirely.

The strait may open again.

The wounds to ASEAN’s energy architecture will take considerably longer to heal.

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Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah is Editor-in-Chief of TNS News, a journalist, editor and media strategist with over 30 years of experience across Malaysian and regional media. The Regional Lens publishes weekly on TNS News.