AmCham Cambodia's Business Outlook in the Context of Tariffs and Thai Border Conflict
A delegation from the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Cambodia recently returned from a visit to Washington D.C. as part of the annual ‘AmChams of Asia Pacific (AAP) Washington D.C. Doorknock’.
AmCham Cambodia hosted an event on July 31, 2025, at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh to share insights from their engagements with U.S. government officials, members of congress and leading think tanks, as well as to provide a business outlook for Cambodia in the context of U.S. tariffs and ongoing border conflict with Thailand.
Casey Barnett, President of AmCham Cambodia, opened the event with a presentation sharing findings from several surveys conducted by the chamber—with the most recent one carried out in July 2025—to give an idea of where investment sentiment currently stands among AmCham members and manufacturers. Overall, Barnett said business and investment sentiment has worsened, especially when compared to 2024, largely due to uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariffs and tensions with Thailand.
Findings from the chamber’s 2024 survey showed that 73 per cent of higher-level company executives, including CEOs, said they would be willing to invest more into Cambodia in the near future, however, this number dropped to 67 per cent in February of 2025—following the initial announcement of Trump tariffs—and even lower to 51 per cent in July 2025 as border conflict with Thailand began to escalate.
Additionally, 54 per cent of companies responding to the July survey said that they expect to make a profit in 2025, while 46 per cent said that they would likely record a loss, further underlining the shaky economic ground businesses are currently standing on.
Watch Casey Barnett comment on investment sentiment in Cambodia
“Nearly 50 per cent said that the Thai conflict has a negative impact on business, and this [survey was conducted] before the escalation of armed conflict. Industries that are very hurt include hotels and restaurants, transportation and storage,” shared Barnett.
"Another issue is fuel—most of Cambodia's fuel comes from Thailand, but on July 16, the Cambodian government issued a ban on Thai petroleum and fuel imports, and there was a lot of concern that this might cause a spike in fuel prices, but this has been successfully managed by the Cambodian government," he added.
Barnett also predicted it was likely that Cambodia and Thailand would eventually receive the same tariff rate from the United States, as President Trump's direct engagement with the two Southeast Asian countries in the ceasefire process put Washington in a position where it could not appear to be favouring one country over the other. This was proven to be true following the official updated tariff announcement made on July 31 (U.S. time) that listed both Cambodia and Thailand down with a tariff of 19 per cent.
Watch Casey Barnett comment on his expectations for U.S. tariffs
Anthony Galliano, Vice-President of AmCham Cambodia and Group CEO of Cambodian Investment Management (CIM), also delivered a speech detailing his main reflections from the chamber’s visit to Washington D.C., which he described as being the “most different” from his previous four visits due to the change in presidency.
“The purpose [of the Washington D.C. doorknock is] to represent and advocate the business interests of U.S. companies [in the Asia-Pacific], but the reality is it's really also about the business interests of the market as well. So it's not only U.S. companies that we represent, but we're effectively, in a peripheral way, representing the countries that we operate in as well,” said Galliano, explaining the intent behind the Washington D.C. visits.
Speaking more on how discussions in the U.S. government have changed focus, Galliano shared that in previous years a lot of talks during the visit surrounded the 'Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity, which was an initiative launched by the Biden administration in 2022. The change in presidency meant that this framework was no longer being discussed.
“What sort of topics did we discuss this year? Well, tariffs, number one, took up most of the space. The Trump administration wants to deal with trade imbalances, and now the wording of trade is not ”free trade", it's “fair trade”. Fair trade is something that can be defined by different people… but the bottomline is free trade is not in the policy, it's now fair trade," said Galliano.
Watch Anthony Galliano comment on how the U.S. is using tariffs as strategic
leverage to further the current administration's policy goals:
“Tariffs were described as a permanent strategic tool, strategic leverage, especially towards adversarial economies,” he added. “So it's a negotiating tool, which has proved to be, if we really look at the timeline of what's happened with the Japanese deals, the EU deals—these rates start out very high, they shock and awe, people get very nervous, they come to the table, and eventually, there's a settlement.”
On the other hand, Galliano noted that tariffs, and the dismantling of soft power tools like USAID, have created chaos in U.S. ally relationships.
“Our tariffs are creating, unfortunately, tension in those relationships. But on the good side, the Indo-Pacific is a central area for U.S. economic and strategic efforts. So if you could see from the negotiations, the first countries that were actually closing deals were in Asia. I haven't heard of any South American deals or any African deals, and the EU just happened. So the focus has been on Asia,” he stressed.
Galliano closed his speech with a positive note on how there might be a silver lining in the current border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand when it comes to the state of Cambodia-U.S. relations.
“I think that with the Thailand-Cambodia conflict, there may have been a little silver lining there, because, from my understanding, President Trump was not too focused on Cambodia, and may not have really had a personal relationship with Prime Minister Hun Manet, but now [Trump] has established that relationship with our Prime Minister by asking him to cease the border conflict and have a ceasefire,” said Galliano. “They've connected, they have a personal relationship, they've talked, and there's been a positive result. So on that basis, our president now knows Cambodia, he knows Prime Minister Hun Manet… and I think that could be a silver lining for Cambodia, they may get rewarded for that.”