What Do Donald Trump's First Weeks Tell Us About His China Strategy?

Trump's actions illustrate how intertwined the No. 2 economy is with U.S. interests

- James T. Areddy

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 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.