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Nayan Seth

On a state visit to China last month, US President Donald Trump shocked his political base with a series of rhetorical concessions.
In an interview, he warmly endorsed Chinese students studying in America, supported China-linked acquisition of US farmland, and dismissed concerns over state espionage as a routine, two-way reality.
It was not the first time Trump’s softer stance on China clashed with his own administration’s hardline approach.
Even before the summit, he repeatedly suggested allowing Chinese carmakers into the US market – a policy non-starter across the executive branch and both sides of the congressional aisle.
While Trump’s warmer rhetoric has raised hopes in Beijing, his government continues to pursue the restrictive policies that define Washington’s broader China strategy, raising questions about the durability of the truce between Washington and Beijing.
Some experts say that Trump’s musings highlighted a purely transactional approach towards China, resulting in a verbal positivity that rarely translates into major policy shifts.
However, others argue that his tone reflects a growing appetite for a less adversarial relationship with Beijing, which creates an opportunity to restabilise bilateral ties.


“Converting Trump’s positivity into actual policy changes is a very different thing that will run up against a deeply institutionalised Washington consensus on China risk,” David Meale, China practice head at the Eurasia Group and the former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Beijing, told the South China Morning Post.
Ahead of the president’s trip to China, John Moolenaar, a Republican congressman from Michigan and chairman of the House Select Committee on China, advised the president in an interview to “recognise [that] we don’t want to sell them our best technologies that could be used by their military against our men and women in the armed forces”.
Democratic lawmakers, led by Ro Khanna, the ranking member of the China Committee and a congressman from California, also wrote to the White House urging Trump to oppose China’s attempt to “dictate US policy toward Taiwan”.
But Jessica Chen Weiss, professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, asserted that the “so-called consensus on China has broken down”.
“There is growing bipartisan interest in a less adversarial, zero-sum relationship with China,” she added.
Two bipartisan congressional delegations have visited China over the past nine months, emphasising the need for sustained engagement with Beijing.
“China’s not going anywhere … They’re a major economic power. We have got to figure out how to coexist with them,” Adam Smith, the Democratic lawmaker from Washington state, said after his September 2025 visit to the country.
American public has increasingly favourable views of China
Public polling also reflects an interest in a less adversarial relationship with China, with data consistently showing rising favourability of China among both Republican and Democratic respondents, particularly among young Americans.
A Pew Research Center survey in April showed Beijing’s favourability share among Americans climbing 6 percentage points to a modest 23 per cent – a figure that has doubled from 2023 – with younger respondents in both parties increasingly choosing to view China as a competitor rather than an enemy.
Meale argued that “public fatigue with adversarial framing is real”.
“My hunch is that voters want to see effective managed engagement rather than new rounds of escalation,” he noted.




In the backdrop of a shifting public mood and a resistant Congress, Trump arrived in China to an elaborate pomp and pageantry, explicitly staged to appeal to his fondness for spectacle and high-profile personal diplomacy with the Chinese leader.
But optics outshone the outcomes as Trump secured narrow commitments for Chinese purchases of US farm goods and 200 Boeing jets.
Both sides also agreed to establish boards of trade and investment and emphasised the need for building “a constructive relationship of strategic stability”.
Major friction points like tariffs, export controls, rare earths and advanced semiconductors were mostly left unaddressed.
While Trump’s comments about leveraging arms sales to Taiwan caused a temporary stir, his administration quickly toned down the rhetoric by stressing that US policy remained unchanged.
“I see the two sides in a state of managed competition. The recent summit preserved stability without resolving structural issues,” Meale said.
Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Centre at the Brookings Institution, noted that both leaders have agreed to “shelve disputes and instead prioritise efforts to lower tensions”.
“There is not any document or structured agreement that underpins it … if either leader breaks from the gentleman’s understanding between them, then areas of friction will quickly resurface,” he added.
A test for Xi and Trump’s ‘understanding’
The understanding faced its first test earlier this week when the office of the US Trade Representative announced proposed tariffs of 10-12.5 per cent against 60 countries, including China, over forced labour allegations under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act.
China criticised the move, calling it “political manipulation”, but stopped short of promising any countermeasures.
Another round of Section 301 tariffs is on its way over excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors. The new measures are widely seen as the administration’s bid to restore the import duties blocked by the Supreme Court’s ruling in February.
Simultaneously, a tariff-free framework under the newly minted US-China Board of Trade is taking shape, with the USTR launching a public comment period. The mechanism is designed to manage US$30 billion in non-sensitive trade on each side.
According to Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific programme at the German Marshall Fund, the latest tariffs, along with a “mismatch” of intentions over the Board of Trade, could further threaten the fragile truce.
“The US simply wants to replace the IEEPA-level tariffs with the 301 tariffs, and the Chinese don’t like that idea, so there’s definitely potential for a return to far higher level of friction in the relationship,” she told the South China Morning Post.




Congress fights attempts to reverse US controls on Chinese exports
As the administration attempts to balance the truce with its trade priorities, Congress has swung into action with a slew of bills aiming to negate any reversal of US stringent controls, especially on AI chips and auto sector investments.
After Trump allowed exports of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China in January, congressional members across party lines introduced more than 20 bills to block Chinese access to advanced chips and their manufacturing equipment, including the Match Act and Stop Stealing Our Chips Act.
In response to Trump’s openness to allow Chinese auto investments in the US, a bipartisan group of House members introduced the Connected Vehicle Security Act just days before the US president’s visit to China.
The legislation effectively bans the importation, production and sale of electric vehicles powered by Chinese software or hardware.
Jessica Chen Weiss of the Johns Hopkins University said that a series of leader-level meetings this year creates “a real window of opportunity for experts and thinkers on both sides to identify what concrete steps would re-stabilise the relationship”.
Apart from President Xi Jinping’s coming visit to Washington in September, the leaders could reconvene on the sidelines of the Apec summit in China in November and the G20 summit in the US in December.
However, Glaser said that she still struggles to “see a real coherent strategy toward China” from the Trump administration, given its transactional focus on tactical farm and jet purchases rather than a long-term steering of the relationship.
Meale concurred, explaining that he does not perceive a “fixed strategy in place” but an “improvisation framed by a desire for stability and potentially beneficial commercial interaction”.
“The real danger down the road is an accumulation of unresolved structural tensions that will land on Trump’s successor,” he warned.


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US president’s warmer tone towards Beijing has raised hopes in China, but US tariffs, export curbs and lawmakers tell a different story


US president’s warmer tone towards Beijing has raised hopes in China, but US tariffs, export curbs and lawmakers tell a different story.


Trump’s China thaw faces resistance from Congress and his own administration

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US president’s warmer tone towards Beijing has raised hopes in China, but US tariffs, export curbs and lawmakers tell a different story

US president’s warmer tone towards Beijing has raised hopes in China, but US tariffs, export curbs and lawmakers tell a different story