Extratropical influences on tropical sea surface temperature (SST) have implications for decadal predictability. We implement a cloud‐locking technique to highlight the critical role of clouds in shaping the tropical SST response to extratropical thermal forcing. With heating imposed over either the extratropical Northern Atlantic or Pacific, Hadley Cells respond similarly that the trades strengthen south of the rainband. The wind‐evaporation‐SST (WES) feedback leads to cooling over the southern subtropics, which is enhanced in the southeastern Pacific due to the positive feedback between SST and stratiform clouds. Cloud‐locking experiments show that zonal contrasts in SST and cloud feedbacks in the Pacific enhance the zonal surface winds, leading to increased evaporation and strengthens zonal SST difference. We propose that the meridional and zonal SST gradients are tightly linked via WES effects and the cloud‐radiative‐SST feedbacks, which are largely determined by the climatological rainband position and the spatial distribution of cloud properties. Plain Language Summary: Tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) plays a key role in climate variability around the globe. Understanding how tropical Pacific SST can be impacted by climate perturbation at mid‐to‐high latitudes is essential for improving climate prediction skills. In this study, how clouds modulate such interaction between tropics and extratropics is examined by utilizing global climate model simulations. With idealized heating being imposed in either the extratropical Northern Atlantic or Pacific, we found common response patterns in the tropical Pacific to the heating. Two factors shape the common response patterns. First, the anomalous southerly winds act to enhance or weaken the evaporative cooling, depending on the climatological rainband position and the associated trade wind directions. Secondly, the anomalous SST induced by changes in evaporation is either amplified or damped by cloud cover changes, since the relationships between SST and cloud amount depend on cloud types. A series of physical processes, which are largely established by the mean‐state climate pattern, act to link the zonal and meridional structure of the SST over the tropical Pacific. Key Points: Tropical surface temperature responds similarly to idealized heating imposed over either North Atlantic or North Pacific as fast responseClouds are essential in forming the tropical response pattern through their coupling with circulation and surface energy fluxesThe climatological rainband position in the tropics determines how clouds shape the tropical responses to extratropical forcing [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]