Trump Hasn’t Decided If He Wants to Work With China—or Beat It
Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024, many observers predicted that his administration would make the Indo-Pacific the central focus of its foreign policy agenda, shifting resources away from Europe and the ongoing war in Ukraine to do so. Early directives from the Defense Department support this analysis.
Yet as in his first term from 2017-2021, Trump has failed to articulate a clear end state for the U.S.-China relationship and has often appeared to waver between several possible outcomes. Moreover, the diverging positions and stances of the officials staffing his foreign policy team reflect Trump’s own uncertainty about how he wants to steer the great power relationship.
In fairness, the administration of former President Joe Biden also struggled to clearly define an end state for its China strategy. Instead, it adopted the mantra of “invest, align, compete,” with the plan being to invest in domestic competitiveness, innovation and democracy; align with allies and partners; and then harness both of these pillars to effectively compete against China.
Yet, these initiatives did not add up to a strategic end state, whether alone or combined. The “invest” pillar focused on strengthening the means with which the U.S. might achieve its goals, while the “align” and “compete” pillars expressed the ways in which it may do so. So while the Biden administration made significant progress in all three areas during its four years in office, it was never clear to what end that progress was directed.
As 2024 approached, with wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza, the Biden administration settled for a “steady state” approach to China. Washington would continue to compete with Beijing across critical sectors such as security, trade and technology, without defining what the ideal end state should be in terms of bilateral relations.
A clear end state focuses the policymaking process and guides officials in making difficult strategic decisions by providing a framework to coordinate scarce resources more efficiently as well as to measure success or failure. The risk of failing to identify such an end state is that policy becomes prone to distractions and aimlessness.
While the Trump administration has yet to articulate a clear vision for the end state of its own China strategy, his policy instincts and past declarations suggest there are four possible ones that he and his team could pursue: détente, grand bargain, great power condominium or primacy.
Trump’s Instincts
Three dominant attitudes shape Trump’s broader approach to U.S. foreign policy, the combination of which can, depending on their respective proportions, lead to different potential outcomes for a U.S.-China end state.
First, Trump frequently laments the decline of U.S. military strength. He has called for major investments in shipbuilding and supported congressional measures to increase defense spending to rebuild the U.S. military. His push for a stronger military, including plans for a $1 trillion defense budget announced yesterday, will significantly boost the hard-power means by which the U.S. might pursue its strategy.
Second, while Trump supports expanding U.S. power through military investment, he maintains a narrow view of U.S. national interests. Though concerned with preserving national prestige, which can at times motivate him to deploy U.S. power abroad his default posture is to be skeptical of intervention and open-ended missions. He often expresses deep frustration with the broad, liberal internationalist goals that have shaped U.S. foreign policy since World War II, especially the United States’ global military presence and its pursuit of an integrated global economic trade regime.
Trump’s mix of foreign policy instincts—military buildup, narrow national interest and deal-oriented diplomacy—could produce a range of possible end states with China.
Finally, Trump’s diplomatic instincts have at times leaned toward reconciliation and deal-making with certain U.S. adversaries. From engaging with North Korea over nuclear weapons and negotiating a trade deal with China during his first term, to launching negotiations with Russia over its war against Ukraine since returning to the White House, he is apt to pursue personalist diplomacy and direct negotiation as much for personal prestige as for any well-conceived strategy.
Of course, there are exceptions. Following the collapse of the Phase One trade deal with China in 2020, Trump empowered the China hawks of his first-term administration to pursue more aggressive deterrent policies. He also launched a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran both then and now. But even these more hardline measures were ostensibly intended to strengthen his bargaining position to secure a better settlement for the United States.
This mix of instincts—military buildup, narrow national interest and deal-oriented diplomacy—could produce a range of possible end states with China.
Possible End States
Détente. “He’s a strong guy, but I liked him a lot,” Trump said of Chinese President Xi Jinping while campaigning for re-election in July 2024. “I respect him.”
Trump clearly holds a certain degree of respect for not only Xi but also Chinese power. That could steer U.S. policy toward a diplomatic rapprochement and the pursuit of détente with Beijing. In such a scenario, tensions between the two countries would ease, paving the way for a more stable balance of power.
Détente rests on two key pillars: a balance of power supported by military parity, and sustained diplomatic engagement grounded in strategic trust and mutual interests. Some within Trump’s administration see China as the United States’ principal adversary and precisely because of that advocate for easing tensions to avoid open conflict. Figures like Elbridge Colby—Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy and one of the leading voices among the so-called China Prioritizers—have called for bolstering U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific, not as a step toward confrontation but as a foundation for achieving détente.
This combination of military strength and diplomatic outreach may be especially appealing to Trump. It aligns with his belief that the U.S. must remain militarily strong, while also reflecting his preference for dealmaking and personal diplomacy over prolonged rivalry.
Grand Bargain. “If they invade,” Trump said as president in 2019, referring to a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, “there isn’t a f—— thing we can do about it.”
A second option the Trump administration might pursue is a grand bargain with China—a sweeping agreement or series of agreements aimed at permanently resolving key points of tension in the bilateral relationship to avoid conflict. While such a deal may not definitively eliminate those tensions, mutual accommodation could address volatile areas of disagreement.
During his first term, Trump was eager to secure a comprehensive trade agreement with China. Although the Phase One trade deal ultimately collapsed during the pandemic, much of Trump’s early presidency was focused on achieving it. Similarly, Trump tried to finalize a grand bargain with North Korea, seeking to “solve” the standoff on the Korean Peninsula by offering significant concessions in exchange for North Korean denuclearization.
In his second term, Trump could revive this grand ambition with China. Rather than escalating U.S.-China competition, he might seek to end it. For now he has once again triggered a trade war between the two rivals, but it is still unclear if his ultimate goal is to reach yet another comprehensive trade deal.
If so, that could address the economic dimension of U.S.-China rivalry. But the geopolitical dimension would hinge on the fate of Taiwan. By every indication, including his reported remarks in 2019, Trump does not seem inclined to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. Additionally, key figures working for Trump—such as the State Department’s director of policy planning, Michael Anton—have argued that Taiwan is not worth going to war over. Even Colby, who is more of a China hawk, has conceded that Taiwan is not an existential interest for the United States.
If the Trump administration views Taiwan as a peripheral interest, it might be willing to trade the island’s autonomy in pursuit of a grand bargain with China. That could resolve their great power rivalry and allow the U.S. to scale back costly deployments in the Indo-Pacific in order to refocus on other priority issues in the Western Hemisphere. To accomplish this, however, the Trump team would have to overcome major security, economic and political tensions with China.
While Trump and his team may favor policies that antagonize China, Trump is unlikely to fully embrace a primacy doctrine unless all avenues for a political settlement with Beijing are exhausted.
Great Power Condominium. “China and the United States can together solve all of the problems of the world,” Trump said in December 2024, while looking ahead at his second term in office after having won the U.S. presidential election.
A third pathway is that the U.S. and China under Trump and Xi could reach such a comprehensive understanding that they establish what might be described as a great power condominium. The idea of the U.S. and China forming a so-called G2 is not new. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, China’s surprising ability to insulate its economy from the worst effects of the global economic meltdown positioned it as a rising superpower, fueling speculation in Washington that the two nations could strike a strategic arrangement of joint hegemony. Rather than pursuing a balance of power, the United States and China would embrace a balance of responsibility, co-managing the world’s evolving security, economic and geopolitical challenges.
The most comparable historical parallel is the Concert of Europe, from 1815 to 1871, where in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars the great powers of Europe collaborated to manage continental affairs and suppress revolutions. A great power condominium between the U.S. and China might appeal to Trump because he has never been personally invested in the U.S.-led world order established after World War II. In fact, he has been openly hostile to many of its underlying assumptions, particularly as they pertain to U.S. global responsibilities.
The idea of collaborating with China to share global responsibilities might seem like an attractive cost-saving measure for administration officials who object to the U.S. spending resources to uphold pillars of the international order and secure the global commons, such as freedom of navigation. A great power condominium in which China assumes more responsibility over issues like this would reduce U.S. costs and could appeal to some Trump administration officials. However, similar to the grand bargain scenario, lingering security, trade and political barriers would continue to hamper this sort of collaboration.
Primacy. “I win against China,” Trump said during his first campaign for president in July 2015. “You can win against China if you’re smart.”
The final possible desired end state is ending the U.S.-China rivalry through a U.S. victory, rather than resolving it through accommodation, as in a grand bargain or great power condominium, or stabilizing the relationship through a delicate balance of power, as in détente. Primacy would require Washington to intensify its competitive policies to gain significant advantages over Beijing and reestablish the U.S. preponderance of power when it comes to security, trade and technology.
A primacy doctrine would align with Trump’s instinct to confront China as an adversary. This approach was most prominent during the final year of his first term after the collapse of the Phase One trade deal, when he empowered administration officials such as then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to rally like-minded allies and partners, protect U.S. technological advantages, strengthen force postures in the Indo-Pacific and adopt new strategies aimed at defeating Chinese ambitions.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has appointed figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz, both of whom have advocated for tough stances on China that are reminiscent of the policies pursued in 2020. Certain scenarios could indeed push the administration toward this approach, particularly if the current trade war continues to escalate. But the administration’s current trajectory makes such a stance unlikely, as reestablishing primacy in the Indo-Pacific would require absorbing the traditional costs and responsibilities of upholding the international order that the current Trump administration seems hesitant to undertake.
So while Trump and his team may favor policies that antagonize China, Trump is unlikely to fully embrace a primacy doctrine unless all avenues for a political settlement with Beijing are exhausted.
Following Through
Choosing a desired end state for the U.S.-China relationship is only a first step in any strategy, and doing so does not guarantee its pursuit or achievement. Beijing’s goals, global events and U.S. domestic politics will all shape the future trajectory and success of U.S. policy. And despite early predictions that Washington would prioritize the Indo-Pacific in its strategic planning, the current administration appears more focused on Greenland, the Panama Canal, Ukraine, Gaza and the Red Sea than on China. And even if it eventually shifts its attention to Asia, the most likely scenario remains that Trump, like his predecessors, will fail to articulate a clear desired end state for U.S.-China relations.
Without such clarity, U.S. policy will continue to drift, lacking cohesion and purpose. Different factions will rise and fall within the administration, as Trump himself alternates between competing desires and policy approaches. Nevertheless, the administration has a genuine opportunity to set U.S. policy on a clear trajectory. Whether it seizes that opportunity remains to be seen.
Connor Fiddler is the associate deputy director for the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His work focuses on alliance politics, U.S. grand strategy and the evolving strategic landscape in Asia.
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