What do Trump’s first weeks tell us about his China strategy?

An America First trade order threatens to strip China of certain preferential access to U.S. markets.
An America First trade order threatens to strip China of certain preferential access to U.S. markets.

Summary

The executive orders and actions taking aim at Beijing suggest a focus less framed around ideology than under the Biden administration.

President Trump’s recent actions illustrate how intertwined China’s economy is with U.S. interests.

China is a theme in President Trump’s first weeks in the White House, factoring into over a third of the more than 80 executive orders and key actions he has signed so far.

Actions including 10% additional tariffs over China’s alleged unwillingness to help halt the flow of fentanyl have laid bare areas in which the new administration will seek leverage over Beijing. Not yet articulated is a broader strategy from Trump for handling America’s biggest rivalry—and whether he sees it in ideological terms or as a series of deals.

Trump’s actions illustrate how intertwined the No. 2 economy is with U.S. interests. An America First trade order threatens to strip China of certain preferential access to U.S. markets. Other measures take aim at Beijing more indirectly, such as orders on illegal immigration, energy production, digital finance, military readiness and even foreign aid.

The big question is whether Trump shares his predecessor’s—and much of Washington’s view—of the China rivalry as a historic battle or whether he intends to frame it more narrowly, in a reprise of his first-term focus on trade imbalances.

“Does the Trump administration really think this is an urgent epochal competition?" as Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Washington-based think tank Woodrow Wilson Center, put it during a recent conference.

The Biden administration regarded China as America’s leading military, economic, ideological and technological challenger, and the great-power competition with Beijing as democracy versus authoritarianism. Some of that sentiment built on hawkishness that emerged in the latter part of the first Trump administration after the Covid pandemic torpedoed Trump’s first trade deal.

An America First trade order threatens to strip China of certain preferential access to U.S. markets.

Trump’s actions so far have shed little light on whether he intends to build on the effort under President Joe Biden to block Chinese industry from accessing core American technologies. But his expressed desire to huddle soon with Chinese leader Xi Jinping is a clear departure from the Biden administration’s strategy of limiting direct engagement with Beijing and instead rallying allies around joint military, trade and diplomatic responses to China.

People who have spoken with Trump’s team said China is a secondary consideration for the administration, and indeed the president’s most headline-grabbing actions have been directed at Mexico, Canada, Greenland and Panama.

“China has been carved out or downplayed during the early days of the administration in a way that presents the possibility of making progress with China," said Susan Shirk, director emeritus of the 21st Century China Center at the University California, San Diego, who sees the president as setting the table for dealmaking with Beijing.

To China watchers, Trump’s tariff scare against Mexico and Canada suggests a playbook similar to how the president went after China during his first term, using trade threats as a negotiating tool. The action against Canada also reinforced doubt that he would work with allies to counter China.

“He’s less ideologically driven," said Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing think tank. He sees Trump as formulating a deal that Wang predicts will find a favorable reception in China.

Beijing’s countermeasures to the new tariff “suggests a more coordinated and comprehensive approach by Chinese policymakers," said Goldman Sachs analysts. They calculate that $14 billion of U.S. exports will be affected by China’s effectively 12% additional tariffs, compared with the 10% hit on $525 billion in Chinese goods from Trump.

While trade appears to remain Trump’s primary focus, Wang said the wide range of executive orders might be aimed at softening Beijing up to make deals in other areas. He points to Trump’s order to create an “iron dome" designed to shield the U.S. from China’s hypersonic missiles, which Wang sees as a bid to compel Beijing into nuclear-arms talks. “He only cares about a fair deal," said Wang.

Trump told a World Economic Forum audience that to build positive ties with China, “We don’t need to make it phenomenal," he said. “We have to make it a fair relationship."

Trump has spoken fondly of Xi personally—“I’ve always liked him"—and aims to solicit Beijing’s cooperation to end the Ukraine war. The White House has sent mixed messages over whether the two will speak about the new tariffs.

Beijing has been relieved Trump’s initial tariff strike has been relatively light. Given the breadth of the orders and actions touching on China, the Trump team appears to be positioning to negotiate a wide-ranging deal with Beijing and is seeking to “maximize the pressure on the assumption they’ll cave," said Christopher Johnson, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and the president of China Strategies Group, a risk advisory firm.

Johnson warned that Beijing won’t be the pushover many in Washington believe and that while Trump appears in a hurry to secure a deal, Xi will slow-walk progress.

Instead of framing America’s contest with China as an existential battle between a democratic or autocratic future as Biden did, Trump is more likely to be guided by his America First mantra, analysts said. His comparatively light opening salvo of 10% additional tariffs on China rather than the threatened 60% sends a signal to Beijing that he will wield the trade weapon, while also limiting how much inflation he is ready to unleash on Americans.

Other actions by Trump seem to reject the national-security concerns regarding China that have gripped Washington, such as his executive order to pause the legislatively mandated shutdown of TikTok to pursue a deal to sell the Chinese platform. Similarly, Trump described the emergence of the high-performing artificial-intelligence tool DeepSeek, which was cheaply developed in China, not as a threat to a strategic, futuristic U.S. industry, but as a fresh spur to American competitiveness.

“I don’t think the president is anti-China," said an adviser to officials in both Beijing and Washington.

The adviser said Trump’s initial attempts to build a “cordial relationship" with Xi—inviting him to the inauguration and referring to him as “chairman" in a January phone call—seem aimed at getting the Chinese leader on board for the president’s domestic priorities on trade. The adviser added that Trump has also made it clear he hopes for Xi’s help to make good on his pledge to be “a president for peace," seeking, for example, an end to the Ukraine war.

Key members of Trump’s team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have historically espoused more ideologically negative views of Beijing than the president. It remains to be seen how much that sentiment might guide policy, particularly as long as China-friendly Elon Musk retains influence.

Ryan Hass, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, said that Beijing will take its cues from the president alone, and that Trump’s influence will depend on how clearly he defines a strategy.

“The first step down this path will be for Trump to begin his term by articulating his goals and vision for China and then directing his top advisers to advance his vision," Hass said in a recent commentary.

Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com

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