Trump's positions on trade, alliances could roil Asia ties

Presidential hopefuls of both parties typically talk tough on China because of America's yawning trade deficit and the migration of U.S. manufacturing jobs to countries with cheaper labor.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee who lost the 2012 election, had vowed to declare China a currency manipulator on day one in office.

[...] Trump is questioning what the U.S. gets out of its decades-old security alliances with Japan and South Korea, which host 80,000 U.S. forces — the backbone of the U.S. military presence in Asia.

In Washington, more than 70 Republican national security experts have signed an open letter condemning Trump, saying his insistence on close allies like Japan paying vast sums for protection, "is the sentiment of a racketeer, not the leader of alliances that have served us so well since World War II."

"U.S. politics is in disarray," lamented the Nikkei newspaper in an editorial after Trump took an important step toward clinching the Republican nomination to contest the November election when he won seven states in "Super Tuesday" primaries.

On foreign policy, Trump is best known for promising to build a wall to stop illegal migration into the U.S. from Mexico, and for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S., which inflamed sentiments in the Muslim world.

When she was secretary of state, Clinton led the Obama administration's outreach to Asia's fast-growing economies — although as a candidate she has come against the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal that she once extolled.