ChinaFile, an online platform of the Asia Society, is dedicated to informed conversations about China. Recently, they asked me, along with a few other China watchers to address the question of whether US President Donald Trump has recently changed his position on China. My comments follow, as does a summary of four others who participated in this discussion.
In one respect, “Is Trump Going Soft on China?” seems like a trick question. The notion of “going soft” implies a strategic connotation that is at odds with the chaos and disruptive style of Donald Trump’s approach to governance. A deliberate shift from “hard” to “soft” misses the real point of what the President is attempting to achieve with China.
What has changed is Trump’s perception of his legacy gambit. His fixation on “the deal,” which, of course, has roots in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, has become the North Star of Trump 2.0. Deal count has become the President’s principal metric of success. Ending the war in Ukraine on day one was supposed to be the signature deal of his inauguration. Post-April 2 “Liberation Day,” it was 90 trade deals in 90 days. The Big Beautiful Bill was his defining fiscal deal. Repression of universities and law firms could only be resolved through deals. More recently, Nvidia and AMD struck revenue-sharing deals with Trump to gain market access in China. And so on.
Trump’s critics ridicule his deals as public relations gimmicks — at best, frameworks that lack strategic buy-in that requires long and arduous negotiations and compromise. The President, of course, is dismissive of such blowback, fixated on the potential of two trophy deals — Harvard and China. If he can cut deals with America’s pre-eminent university and its peer superpower competitor, Donald Trump’s self-anointed legacy as dealmaker-in-chief will all but be enshrined.
Has he gone soft on China in order to achieve that outcome? On the surface, it certainly seems that way. His post-Liberation Day bark has been far worse than any bite. Initial tariff threats of 145% have been slashed to 30%. He has kicked the China negotiations deadline can repeatedly down the road — most recently to November 10. He has abandoned AI containment to strike a deal with leading US chipmakers. Forget about Putin with whom Trump has been congenitally soft. Desperate for a deal with China as the crown jewel of his deal-focused presidency, Donald Trump will stop at nothing to put another notch in his deal belt.
Beneath the surface, this approach is troubling. A better question is, What would a deal with China, on Trump’s terms, mean for the United States? It would certainly not make a dent in the trade deficit, which will continue to widen as big, beautiful budget deficits push already depressed domestic saving even lower. Nor would it lead to a revival of US manufacturing, where further expansion of China’s unmatched industrial prowess will continue to gain global market share. And a deal with China will not offset America’s shortfall in Federal support to basic research, perhaps the most decisive factor in the AI race.
Going soft on China may well boost Donald Trump’s cherished deal count. But this short-term focus will do next to nothing to make America truly great over the long haul.
Summary of other commentators:
James McGregor (Greater China Chairman for APCO)
Trump has not gone soft on China because he has no choice. China has punched back post-Liberation Day and holds the most important cards — rare earths and technology applications such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other aspects of advance manufacturing.
Wendy Cutler (Asia Society Policy Institute)
There are some signs of a policy and tone shift by Trump on China —– a relaxation of export controls, positive and supportive comments about his great friend, Xi Jinping, and Treasury Secretary’s Bessent’s desire to cut a trade deal with China. We will know more in the next two and half months.
Ryan Haas (Brookings Institution)
Trump is shifting the terms of the debate on China — moving away from intimidation and fear to stressing opportunities of a deal-focused on rebalancing of US trade with China. This shift is more opportunistic, unlikely to be enduring.
James Mann (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Yes, Trump has gone soft on China. But apart from tough rhetoric and quickly reversible threats, he has never really been tough on China. He is focused on laying the groundwork for a highly publicized rapprochement, with a quick summit in Beijing. Post-summit, reversion to a do-nothing norm is likely.