By Tom Fowdy
As announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, US President Donald Trump is set to visit China from May 13th to May 15th. In doing so, he becomes the first US President to visit the country since 2017, which was, of course, undertaken by himself. The lull of time passed since then accounts for a vastly changed US foreign policy, and world as a whole, for we have lived through Trump's first trade war against Beijing, a shift towards strategic competition, the riots in Hong Kong, the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and then his return to office. Yet, his decision to make such a visit, despite trade tensions, gives more reasons for optimism than pessimism on the condition that substantive results can be yielded.
Since the second Trump administration came to power, the President has actually moderated American policy towards China. Although strategic competition remains, and the US defence and foreign policy establishment will not allow it any other way, as a BBC piece published by Osmond Chia notes, the Biden administration was actually more aggressive in its approach to Beijing to Trump is now. While Biden largely shunned engagement towards China and sought to escalate military containment and technological embargos on all fronts, Trump 2.0 - now in much firmer control of his administration and having done away with extremists such as Mike Pompeo and Matthew Pottinger – has narrowed down the fundamental issue of US-China relations to economics and trade.
Thus, while Trump has renewed trade war tensions, placed additional tariffs on China (as well as the whole world) and is trying to tilt American advantage by pushing unilateralist, one-sided deals, he has nonetheless shelved a lot of the contentious issues in the relationship which the US had pushed, in the view of actually seeking better deals with Beijing. In doing so, the United States has now pragmatically adapted the position (for now) that economic interdependence with China is a reality, and it is not desirable or feasible to force a Cold War-like decoupling in today's world. Hence, when Trump arrives, he is bringing a huge US business delegation with them, who will be seeking to make deals in China. This is unprecedented in the scope of the next decade.
What Trump fundamentally wants is to better access the Chinese market for the benefit of the United States. By imposing tariffs, he has attempted to assert leverage over Beijing. However, what he has not calculated is that China has a very powerful hand of its own, with dominance of key global supply chains in critical minerals such as rare earths, which it is able to pull the plug on, as it did in 2025, in order to make its demands met. Withdrawal of such earths is capable of crippling strategic industries in both Europe and America itself, and thus, Donald Trump has not been able to assert economic dominance over Beijing in the way he has been able to do with smaller countries. Thus, bargaining has been a lot tighter, and China has correctly called his bluff on some of his more extreme threats.
But will there be a breakthrough from such a visit? The chances of a grand bargain that fundamentally changes the status-quo and removes US trade issues towards China are unlikely, here is why. First of all, is China truly prepared to change its export-driven economic model, which also includes support of critical industries with state support, in order to appease the United States? The answer is no, of course not. China's entire economic development strategy in the past decade has been premised on ascending up the technological ladder and exporting higher-end goods, and thus China's exports are at a record level. Whilst doing this, it has deliberately de-leveraged the property market in order to curb the bubble emerging, which has suppressed domestic spending and consumption (as people have lost climbing property values as a security asset), thus making growth even more contingent upon sticking to the plan. Of course, China's technological rise is precisely what has triggered opposition from the United States, this has transformed the situation into a broader strategic conflict of interest which, as has been pointed out many times, cannot be truly resolved given what is at stake. China cannot sacrifice its economic growth for good relations with the US, and vice-versa.
Thus, this is what is likely to happen. The visit will be diplomatically substantive for US-China relations, heralding a new point of stability and goodwill. In accordance with this, many US companies will strike deals with China and Beijing will likely pledge to buy a number of US products, such as Boeing planes, or agricultural products. In accordance with this, Trump may offer a mild concession on tariffs, without fundamentally altering the status quo, and will use the visit to proclaim a personal victory for American companies and exporters. In line with this, he will then publicly invite Xi Jinping to visit the United States, where he will then attempt to lay the ground for a slightly bigger bargain, hence the political risks of such will be steeper. But other than that, it will be business as usual, yet a clear pivot away from the chaos we have seen in past years.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
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