After demolishing the U.S.-China relationship, Trump is rebuilding it his way

President Trump blew up America’s decadeslong engagement with China during his first term.

- Lingling Wei [e-mail]

Now, he is poised to relaunch the kind of engagement with Beijing embraced by predecessors from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama—but on Trump's terms.

Top trade negotiators for the U.S. and China, wrapping up two days of tense talks in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, said they arrived at a framework agreement that sets the table for Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to agree on a major deal when they meet Thursday in South Korea.

The deal itself appears to be a transactional truce, potentially involving China resuming purchases of U.S. soybeans and delaying new controls on rare-earth minerals. On the table for the U.S. is shelving new tariffs, rolling back the 20% levy on China over its role in the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., and potentially refraining from taking new policy actions against China.

But there is more to the agreement than just a temporary ceasefire. It is the first plank in a newly structured, high-level dialogue, intended to lock in a full year of leader-led diplomacy. The schedule is ambitious: Trump is expected to travel to Beijing early next year followed by a reciprocal visit from Xi later that year.

For Trump, it’s a stunning reversal.

“The first Trump presidency put the U.S. and China on a pathway toward long-term, unquestionable competition, if not confrontation,” said Evan Medeiros, a former senior national-security official in the Obama administration and now a professor at Georgetown University. “Now it appears that Trump is flipping his own script on China, initiating a new phase of more and higher-level engagement.”

Beyond high-level diplomacy, the truce sets the stage for a tactical stabilization of the relationship over the next year.

This detente pivots Trump back to his preferred role as the central dealmaker, securing short-term economic relief—like resumed soybean purchases—that plays well with Republican voting states.